Connections
by Menithe
Summary: Weiss runs up against the supernatural a lot, especially for simple crime-fighters. The supernatural world has its own crime-fighters; it is inevitable that Weiss should run into them as well.
1. Chapter 1

Author's Notes:

I hate author's notes. However, this story needs a real title; "Connections" is its working title, so I am soliciting suggestions from any interested parties.

I own neither YuYu Hakusho nor Weiss Kruez. Only the plot and the occasional, brief OC are mine.

Connections

Chapter One

Somehow he was back at the dump site again. _"Reclamation Center"_, some fragment of his daylight mind corrected, but in his dreams it was still the old industrial dump. And there were the SD again. All around Weiss were the heaps of concrete and steel, the mounds of rubble that were their only allies. The rush of wind in his face. The bite of the cigarette Yohji had passed him, the damage it was doing his lungs hardly mattering now.

While he was down at the bottom of that little valley again, holding a wounded Omi, it suddenly occurred to him to be uncertain if he was grateful for dodging death twice, living beyond the car accident and the fire; or pissed off about dying on a garbage heap. Reflecting that either way a lot of effort had been wasted on him since he was six if it ended here.

And then; there was Aya, with the machine gun out the roof of Persia's car. Coming over the mound of debris they huddled before, mowing down SD forces left and right and. . .. The car stopped and Ken got a good look - for just a second. The car was gone and the figure wasn't Aya -it was someone else. Someone with wild slick dark hair and smirking eyes and a devil-may-care grin with the sun rising behind him. Someone Ken didn't know, but recognized all the same. The figure raised its arms and the rising sun burst into white fire along the horizon. It cleared the area of everything but itself and Weiss and Ken found himself clinging to his three brothers-in-arms as the world dissolved into white. And the smirking figure was swallowed up in the morning light and the buzzing of his alarm.

Ken rolled over and slapped the alarm off. He had early shift this morning and if he wanted a jog or a shower he couldn't snooze. He felt the need of something to clear the fuzziness out of his head. Every time he had that dream his head felt funny for a while afterward, as if it were too full. Too full of things he couldn't quite place. Ken shuddered, it was a sensation that reminded him all to much of the museum. And who *was* that stranger in this dream?

He threw the sheet off, climbed out of bed and stumbled to the bathroom. He turned the sink on cold and splashed till he was sure his eyes were open. Too bad he couldn't splash out the lingering sense of unease. It would have to be a run. Just a shower wasn't going to get it this time, and maybe he'd get lucky and catch some kids in the park before school with a ball. Yeah, that was what he needed; a good kick round with a ball. He finished dressing by jamming his feet into too-old sneakers and hopping a bit in them to settle them on his feet. It was mornings like this he was so grateful for the kids -with them he could pretend he was six again and had never had anything more important in his life than his soccer ball.

He shrugged into his jacket just in case the shiver was the from the cold and not from the dream or the thought of tonight, (and that thought was another reason for a good kick-round, fuzziness later would just not do). Then Ken walked out the door, shut it behind him and tossed his keys in the air, catching and pocketing them on his way down the stairs.

---|---

Ken paused at the open partition door -he was sure he'd heard something. A dozen feet to his right and near the other door into the space ahead Aya stopped, waiting for Ken. Ken pointed to his ear, indicating he'd heard something and gestured for Aya to go through his door first. Hopefully Aya could come around behind the unseen something while Ken engaged it head on. Aya nodded, his lips moving as he relayed the plan through their sub vocal mics to Yohji and Omi. Then he slipped into the next room -a silent crimson shadow in a forest of night pieces.

Ken waited a few seconds for Aya to get in to position then dived and rolled through the doorway with a yell. He came to his feet just in time to slip aside as a suckered tentacle hit the ground with a meaty wet thwak, right where he'd come to his feet. The tentacle was one of a pair that burst from the abdomen of a man-shaped thing. It had two arms, two legs, a torso and a head and there the resemblance to human kind ceased. All three eyes bulged and the mouth was fringed with smaller tentacles and every visible surface on the thing was covered with suckers that gleamed wetly in the faint light. Ken could also see that he wouldn't be getting any help from Aya soon. Aya was fencing with something, again humanoid, at least eight feet tall and horned on the head, great scythes of horn that grew out from the forearm screeching against the edge of Aya's katana as they dueled. Ken just had time to see Yohji drop from the second story, wrapping his wire around the horned thing's head and setting his foot in the small of it's back before instinct warned him and he ducked another tentacle . Then it was simply duck and block for a while and occasionally cut at those tremendous whips of flesh as Ken struggled to survive stalling for the time his team mates needed to deal with their own goliath.

Unfortunately Ken was tiring. Suddenly he heard the wet thwak, but instead of seeing it chip cement he felt the tentacle wrap around a leg. The thing tumbled him from his feet and dumped him unceremoniously on his hip. It turned and began dragging him across the warehouse floor toward the waterfront dock. Ken twisted around searching for something to grab. Finally he had nothing left but digging his bugnuks ineffectually into the concrete floor trying to get a grip to fight the thing's drag. If it got him to the water. . .. Then Aya's katana was there and the drag was gone. Ken squirmed backwards cutting and ripping the suckers off his legs, very glad for his thick jeans.

Shrieking, the thing swung at Aya three handed; the irregular rhythm giving it enough advantage force Aya onto the defensive. Aya switched to blocking desperately as he backpedaled. The thing seemed to be completely unaffected by losing a body part.

Ken rolled into a crouch and was about to leap at the thing claws first when "stay down!" in Omi's voice kept him on the cement and under the path of the two crossbow bolts that suddenly appeared in the thing's right and central eyes. Aya had been forced around halfway to Ken which had left the monster in the perfect position for Omi to target as he came through the door. The arrow's force drove it away from Aya and knocked it ponderously off it's feet. It fell with a muffled crash. It didn't rise.

Ken finally got to stand up and walked over to stare down at the motionless form - or he thought it was motionless. Abruptly it wavered in his vision like a heat mirage and a vague, sparkling pink mist seemed to rise from the body and hover a moment before dissipating. He was very disturbed that it seemed to dissipate in the direction of himself, Aya, Omi behind them, and Yohji standing by the other corpse.

.

"Shit!" Ken exclaimed -did you see that?!" He looked at his team mates, Yohji and Omi wore matching confused looks but Aya was grim, "I didn't see anything really unusual", volunteered Yohji, "Omi?, Aya?"

Omi shook his head as Aya nodded, catching Ken's eyes "That- red fog?" Ken nodded and Aya continued "Did you see it -- move too?"

"Yeah", Ken replied, "I wonder why Yohji and Omi didn't?."

"Maybe we just weren't close enough?" Omi volunteered

"Or you could both just be nuts" Yohji added, "all things considered.. for any of us to go 'off' would hardly be a surprise."

"But not to be expected," responded Omi, "and not simultaneously having an identical hallucination, which seems to have been the case? You both saw the same thing?"

Ken and Aya nodded.

Ken knelt down poking curiously at the body "I don't think we were _just _seeing things guys -this one's even weirder than anything Masafumi Takatori came up with.

"All things considered", Aya added, "the four of us ruling out the supernatural would be naive at best."

"Supernatural!" exclaimed Yohji, "does it have to be supernatural? Couldn't it just have been just well- chemical? The fog stuff..."

Ken and Aya shook their heads together,

"Na," said Ken, "no I don't think that stuff was 'chemical' it felt.. well..."

"-it _felt._" interrupted Aya "chemical mists don't have a 'feel'. I couldn't really say what it felt like but chemical mists don't have a feel unless they hit you."

Ken rubbed the back of his neck uncomfortably "which it did actually. Though I agree Aya, it made my skin crawl long before it touched any of us."

"Did anyone feel anything when it hit us?" Omi asked looking at Aya and Ken.

Ken and Aya exchanged glances before Ken spoke, "Not really -a little wired from the adrenaline and surprised at what I saw -but I don't _think_ I felt anything unusual..."

Aya looked a bit more uncertain. "I'm,... not sure. But, no, nothing _unusual._"

Omi nodded. "Then I think the best we can do is to do some research on our own. We should still tell Kriticker about it in our report, but in some way that-"

"-doesn't make me and Aya sound nuts?" cut in Ken.

"Exactly." Yohji answered. "Kritiker is worried enough about us without adding fuel to the fire. Besides, they're _really _not set up to research the supernatural." He shrugged, " Not that we're that much better, but I think that after the museum we'd at least recognize a real working ritual if we tripped across one?" He got a chorus of reluctant nods in answer. "Which is something Kritiker hasn't shown any particular skill in doing. Let alone belief in..

I'm still not sure Burman hasn't convinced herself that the whole Esset thing wasn't a case of mass hallucination.."

Omi shrugged, "Well she wasn't there. Unlike us she didn't have the reality of the supernatural shoved down her throat.." He shook the memory off, "So we're agreed then? Report it, but not _all _the details, and do our own investigation?"

"Which assumes we will be any better at it." Aya remarked. "But yes, as you say Omi."

"Then let's get out of here and have Kritiker come clean up before some poor cop stumbles on this." Ken sniffed, holding his nose at the growing smell.

With a round of unspoken agreement Weiss faded into the shadows like the felines they were named for and the White rode the dark back to its den, to sleep awhile again.

---|---

Yuusuke flipped his favorite chopper into the air and with a carefully measured spurt of youki tipped the spinning blade point down into the chopping block to wait for tomorrow. With a small smirk he hung his apron on the hook that had held the owner's aprons since Yukimura - san's days and was reaching to flip off the light as the applause broke out.

"Bravo Yuusuke!" Botan cheered "It's good to see you haven't lost your touch!"

Yuusuke glared warily over his shoulder. "What touch Botan? You know I'm retired now. Keiko and I are going to raise a family. Add his father's opinion of me and I'm not taking missions for Junior anymore". His eyes narrowed. "You better not be here about one".

"Well... Haa haa eumm... ." Botan hedged, "actually-"

"-NO. N.O., no, Botan. If you want to come home and see Keiko she'd love a visit. Otherwise go back and remind Koenma about his father again". His features settled into a mildly irritated snarl. "It's been better than a decade Botan, Koenma must have _someone_ else to hand these jobs to".

Botan slid off her oar and folded her hands in the sleeves of her kimono, her features settling into seriousness. "No, Yuusuke , there hasn't been anyone to replace you. Your level of performance, dedication and compassion is hard to find. . .."

Yuusuke snorted at that.

Botan shook her head and raised a hand for silence. "I'm not flattering you. Death speaks only the truth, you know that. Besides," she continued before he could interrupt. "This is less an assignment than- an offer."

"What is that supposed to mean Botan?"

Wordlessly she drew an folder from her sleeve and handed it to him. He broke the red seal, opened it and began to read. She said, "Koenma-sama felt you deserved first shot at this case, even if you are retired. If you pass he will find someone else, but, if you want it he felt it should be yours."

Slowly Yuusuke nodded, shutting the folder. "He was right. This was _my _case the first time and it's still my case." He locked eyes with Botan, "I assume I'll be allowed my team?"

She nodded. "Koenma-sama had to do some fast negotiation with his father and King Enma instructs you are to remember his ban on Youkai killing humans but Kurama and Hiei will be allowed to help."

"Good. Botan, let them all know and we'll meet up at Genkai's." He gave her a wry grin, "Just like old times." She smiled thinly back, gave a determined nod, summoned her oar and was gone.

"Yep," Yuusuke mused, rubbing his chin and wincing reflexively as he thought of his wife's reaction. "just like old times."


	2. Chapter 2

Author's Notes:

I hate author's notes. However, this story needs a real title; "Connections" is its working title, so I am soliciting suggestions from any interested parties.

Also, while I will be giving complete discriptions of all the characters over the course of the narrative, this is fan fiction which does pre-suppose a familiarity with the characers, so I don't spend much time on that. For those without the patience to wait for the bits to assemble to whole characters and who know either Yu Yu Hakusho or Weiss Kruez but not both, (or neither for that matter), the wikipedia entries for each should supply all you need to recognize who is who.

I own neither YuYu Hakusho nor Weiss Kruez. Only the plot and the occasional, brief, OC are mine.

Connections

Chapter Two

The last time they'd been in the mission room before Takatori's frame job had them running from the SD, it had occurred to Ken that there was something wrong somewhere that the White Hunters met in the dark, under the ground, to get their orders to go save the world. A sense of self preservation, however, made him keep this observation to himself. Sitting here again in another dark room while a fake Persia appeared on the screen before him and spoke in stirring phrases that made much more sense when he'd been younger and the air had been cleaner, it occurred to him that maybe he should worry about just how many of his conversations these days only happened in his head.

The screen fuzzed a second and the CGI Persia silhouette came on the screen. "Men of Weiss, the men you see before you are attempting to revive a serpent who's head you have cut off once already." Persia's electronically distorted voice paused and his image vanished, replaced with a split screen. The right hand image seemed too absurd to be seriously involved in any evil. The man had a thin pointy face; a pointed chin, curled pencil mustache, oval droopy eyes and hair that was parted down the middle and greased in place. He wore a coat-and-tails tuxedo with a bow tie and shiny patent leather shoes. "The first target calls himself Sakashita. All that is known about him is that he was frequently seen in the company of the deceased crime lord, Tarukane Konzo. The other should be familiar to all of you." The second picture had indeed made Weiss collectively shift toward the screen; it showed a square shaped, pudgy, bald man in round wire frame glasses. "This man served Hikage Masaya as a public stand-in and right hand man. Now that Hikage is dead, he has assumed the name and having killed anyone who says otherwise, he is now, for all purposes, Hikage. He is poised to renew the business that made his master so wealthy. Weiss, these men are attempting to create a deadly combat area similar to Hikage's human chess. They have christened it 'The Dark Tournament'.

Even more sinister are their backers. Though these men certainly have the connections and know-how to produce such an event, they lack the capital. The project appears to be in its formative stages and is thus relying heavily on outside cash from an emerging cult that calls itself Nigre Libro Decuria." The picture changed to another split image; showing and old bald man in glasses, a full beard and kimono and a woman in a vivid, feathered, florid kimono and Kabuki-like makeup. "These are the only two cult leaders for which we have pictures. We have no names to go with them. The cult is attempting to present itself as an emerging form of Shinto for the modern age and recruits heavily from the bored upper middle class; the true source of wealth in any modern industrial society. It has thus accumulated a great deal of cash very quickly. More importantly the donations provide cover to launder far more money in illegitimate funds -especially the proceeds from this new tournament of death. Your mission is to eliminate these four people before their Nigre Libro Decuria can become well established and destroy their Dark Tournament before it sacrifices more lives to their greed. Hunters of the night deny these evil beasts their tomorrows."

The recording switched off and lights switched on. "Well," asked Manx, "who's in?"

The four agents exchanged looks and Yohji spoke, "I know I passed on the original mission for lack of cute girls, but at least one of these guys has seen at least one of us-" he looked over at Aya, "I think this is less a matter of choice and more a matter of covering our backs..."

"You mean finishing our own clean-up" Ken disgustedly puffed his floppy mahogany bangs out of his eyes again and glared at Manx.

Omi sighed, "Now I wish I'd missed a little and put an arrow into the assistant too".

Manx smirked a little, "No, that would have meant two of you who had a problem focusing on the assigned target," she drawled, smiling, with twinkle, at Aya, "and that would have been just too many eh, Abyssinian?"

Aya shrugged, but denied nothing.

"As I was saying." Yohji continued, "This gives the targets a small advantage targets usually don't have. Add to that the fact," he held up the _very_ small mission folder, from a very short stack, Manx had placed on the table, "that Kritiker intelligence on this is... slim, if we're doing this I think we need all of us, and any other advantage we can find."

Aya nodded, "I'm in. This is a safety matter for us, I can't see this new Hikage leaving Weiss unmolested if he can get his power back."

Omi and Ken nodded in agreement , Ken adding, "I think I'm personally offended at this- we put them down once, but they didn't stay. We have to make it stick this time."

"There's another way this is like last time." Omi turned annoyed eyes to Manx. "Manx, Persia didn't give us identities on half the targets again. Though at least this time we got pictures."

Aya broke in with a soft whuff of displeasure, "Not on the woman... almost anything could be under that makeup."

Manx shrugged "Kritiker is severely understaffed after the damage we took from Esset. That and the importance of dealing with this as swiftly as possible means we have less to go on than we'd like. You can be sure these are the guilty parties. Any other facets of their lives are less important. Like human chess, all the principles regularly attend the matches- you know who and you know where, or rather when. You don't need anything more to kill them. They may have learned to be more low-key about their attendance, but if no where else, you can get them all at the Dark Tournament itself.

"What do we actually know about that?" asked Aya.

Manx handed handed him a folder and then passed folders to the rest of Weiss. "A great deal more actually. They have been recruiting 'talent' for just over a month now and holding 'qualifier' competitions in the Tokyo underground. Our best estimate is that they will continue for at least another two or three weeks. Representatives of the tournament have been approaching known martial artists who are a bit on the shady side and established street gangs. They also recruit from the less-than-legal 'fight clubs'. This is how we recommend inserting Weiss. Considering your level of training and expertise, getting any of you noticed by the tournament recruiters should be no trouble at all. Once a prospect is recruited, assuming he survives the qualifier, a tremendous sum is deposited in their name and they are taken to an estate on an off shore island as a 'training camp'. There every measure, agreeable and dis-agreeable, is taken to keep them there. A prospect is allowed to bring one companion as a trainer, not coincidently providing a potential hostage, and the formation of teams is encouraged; again providing potential hostages. Even the 'training period' is brutal and often fatal. The tournament itself will, of course, be to the death." She ruefully shook her head. "If this is allowed to continue it will be a mass slaughter and make remorseless and unrestrained killers of young men whose only original crime was no more than being as desperate as the participants in the original human chess."

Manx nodded to each of them and popping the video out of the machine, she exited the hotel suite that Weiss had been using as a temporary base until other arrangements could be made. Weiss, and what remained of Kritiker, all agreed that returning to the Koneko was too dangerous. Yohji stepped over and took the papers Aya had already gone through, flipping through them idly, "I do think we need the whole team on this, but I don't see how we can manage it." He smirked over his sunglasses at Aya, "Our new Hikage will recognize Abyssinian for sure. Better not take a chance on Omi either, not just because he looks too young," he chuckled at the face Omi made about that observation, "not your fault chibi, I'm sure that growth spurt will hit sooner or later, but it's a safe bet that he's going to be reviewing any old personnel folders for ringers -after the way his boss went down." He sighed and dropped the folder back on the table. "That leaves me and Ken."

"I don't know," Omi answered, "are the weapon choices going to be that broad? Will you be allowed to use your wire?"

"Yeah," Yohji answered gesturing at the file he'd been reading, "they don't seem to care _what_ you use. As long as it kills."

"Do we really want to use our regular weapons anyway?" asked Ken, "I mean Hikage won't know me or Yohji, but we don't always get _everyone_ around a target and the bodies definitely show what's been used on them. I always thought that was part of the point of having us use hand weapons... set up a 'Weiss Rep' in the underworld right?" Ken was mildly irritated at the surprised looks the guys gave him, "It doesn't really matter on an assassination, we're not there if someone figures out that we did the killing, but do we really want to be on some uncharted island somewhere in the East China Sea when some guy says "hey -didn't that bunch Weiss sometimes use a claw thing?"

"No," Aya answered, "we don't. Ken is right. Yohji and Ken need to come up with alternative weapons. They could certainly be related-"

"- I'm not using a whip." Yohji snorted.

"We'll think of something." Answered Omi. "What I'm most concerned about," his look flicked between his teammates, "is that our only options would leave you two out in the open without back up. I think our first two priorities need to be new weapons for Ken and Yohji and unbreakable disguises for Aya and I."

Aya frowned. "Nothing's unbreakable Omi."

"In the long term, yes that's true. But do we really expect to spend more than a week or two under cover? Aya and I that is. We can come on board just before departure for the training camp. Ken and Yohji will have to be under longer -but that shouldn't matter. Those Weiss wanted pictures were so crappy they're irrelevant and even if they're recognized in their before-Weiss identities," he shrugged over Ken's not quite invisible wince, "it will only lend credence to their cover. We, "he gestured to indicate himself and Aya," are a possible hazard as Hikage can recognize us as a potential threat -but the only people who can connect Siberian of Weiss to Ken the goalie or Balinese to private detective Yohji Kudo are in this room, in Kritiker, or dead.

Any other thoughts or suggestions?" He took in the thoughtful looks and faint head shakes. "Alright then. Yohji and Ken spend the rest of the week working on new weapons, and Aya and I will spend it coming up with the new us-es? Agreed?" A chorus of nods. "Well," Omi grinned I'm off to steal some nice un-trace-able equipment!" He headed for the door.

"I will be back later." Aya followed him out.

"Hey, night is falling! Pretty women are calling! Catch ya later Ken Ken." Yohji pulled his ever present comb from his back pocket, (Ken still didn't know how he managed to put _anything_ in the pocket of pants that tight), began adjusting his dark blond waves, sauntered out and still somehow managed to close the door behind him; leaving Ken suddenly blinking at the now empty room.

Ken sighed. Tomorrow he'd start retraining with a loaded glove -there wasn't really any point in agonizing over an alternative weapon when the best choice was so obvious and so universal to the kind of thug he'd be playing. But tonight he was going to give himself a good beer and a good game on the hotel cable. Simple ambitions could be a good thing. Televised football never gave people tentacles, abrasions and broken bones yes, but no weird stuff.

---|---

Ken sat near the end of the bar and tried to project violence; something which, despite his night time profession, he wasn't particularly good at- unless he really, _really_ meant it. He didn't actually want to kill anyone tonight; hence the difficulty. Though better than a week of this was beginning to make him want his bugnuks. Part of the problem was that he was uncomfortable here. He wasn't nervous by any means, he had yet to see anything wander by that he wasn't certain he could take, armed or otherwise, but this really wasn't his kind of place. The music was loud and obnoxious. The two TVs in the place were showing a rather brutal bare knuckle boxing match and an Ultimate Fighting Championship bout. The patrons were loud, smelly and aggressive and the bartenders were no better. He'd already had two snarling matches just to keep his rather poor seat. The second time he'd actually needed to pull Siberian up to the surface of his eyes to get the bastard to back down. He found himself absently scratching the place on his palm that always itched inside his clawed gloves. Ken wasn't against a little controlled aggression but he'd much rather be a sports bar somewhere watching a nice bloody soccer game for it. Especially as the mission wasn't. . ..

His train of thought was interrupted when another body was thrown against him from behind. He caught himself before he could be knocked into his drink and slipped from behind the anonymous body and off his barstool. The over size, intentionally bald bad ass maybe-be who'd done the original shove-ing grinned, "Great, I was looking for a seat." With that he threw his punching bag back into the crowd and sat on Ken's barstool.

Ken thought about that for a moment, trying to decide how he wanted to approach this. Finally he shrugged to himself, he _was_ here to get into a fight why wait? Ken calmly reached out in a motion so swift it blurred, grabbed the bigger man by his neck, and slammed his head into the counter a quick three times -smashing his beer glass in the process. The immediate vicinity went silent and backed up. Ken took half a step back and smirked as the bleeding hothead came to his feet and whirled around. Ken set feet to meet the lunge the other was obviously about to throw when the bartender's _very_ large club came noisily down on the bar between them. "Not so fast gentlemen. If you two have a problem you'll settle it in the ring." He nodded at the roped-off empty space that was the centerpiece of the bar.

"Fine with me." Ken laughed. He stepped away from the bar and vaulted into the 'ring'. He slipped into Siberians's grin again and beckoned to the other man, who was chuckling as he stepped between the ropes into the cleared space.

Ken backed up to draw his opposition to the center, crouched with a casual guard and waited. The man still wore a grin as he lumbered in fast, swinging his right fist short and high, which suited Ken just fine. Ken met the man's punch with a rising right guard and stepped under the swing onto his left foot; fast and hard enough that when Ken's panther strike hit under the man's arm, it not only dislocated the joint but lifted him ever-so-slightly off his feet. Ken wasn't finished yet. As the big man was staggering under the shock to get his footing back, Ken spun to his back- driving his right elbow into the other's kidney, remembering only at the last second to pull it enough not to kill him. His momentum spent he dropped to the floor and swept his left leg around and through his opponent's ankles from in front, flipping the man's heels into the air and abruptly planting his face on the concrete.

Ken stood up. The anonymous and the now silent bully didn't. Ken flipped him over with his foot. The man was still breathing, though not through his nose, and would live- with medical attention. Ken let out a small nasty grin. "Now you have a place to sit." He shrugged his jeans jacket back into place and walked back to his quickly emptied bar stool. He wasn't bothered the rest of the night.

The next night took an extra hour before anyone tried to take his spot again.

The night after that his stool cleared as soon as he walked in and the barkeep had his drink waiting for him. The challenger showed up promptly. And the recruiter showed up just before closing.

---|---

Yohji put the rest of his drink down, and got up, dropping some bills next to it and headed -slowly, out the back. Aiko had just grabbed her boyfriend-of-the-moment and headed out the same way. With what he'd slipped in the boyfriend's drink things should be right on schedule for a little chivalry. With any luck _he'd_ end the evening trailing behind on Aiko's lead instead of the boyfriend-of-the-moment.

He got to the back door and paused for a bit; it wouldn't do to go out there too soon. This was supposed to be accidental; though of course he'd been setting this up for a week or so.

He'd actually started this little scam, in a way, when they'd first got the mission. Something about the victim's photos on a couple of bodies had bothered him. He'd taken those pictures back to his room and just short of dawn he'd realized what it was. Past the bloating and the tissue damage he recognized those two faces. They were faces that were regulars at one of his bar stops. It took till close that day in the flower shop before he realized which bar stop. It was a place he went when he wanted to drink alone and wanted to be busting heads that deserved it if he was bothered. That realization of course, led immediately to the knowledge that that one of the bar's other regulars must be a recruiter.

It took a while to identify Aiko. A week of watching who was cozy with who and who was on the outs with who and who was new. It had taken another week to narrow it down to Aiko. Ken had already had his 'interview' and been recruited by the time Yohji was sure it was Aiko.

Aiko was a fairly new addition and was very interested in all the more violent types. The ones he knew were actually violent- not the posers. Even being so new in the neighborhood she seemed to have a real instinct for this, to go straight for the actual tough guys, (Yohji was just a bit insulted that she'd yet to bother him). She'd also impinged on his PI instincts with a whiff of money that just didn't fit. A couple more days spent checking up on the activities and background of the other possibilities left everyone else with full lives and backgrounds and barfly Aiko a blank cypher. So he'd found his girl,... now he just needed to catch her.

That should be long enough. Things should be getting past slap and tickle an into toss and rip by this point. It had been long enough the drugs Yohji had slipped into the boyfriend's drink should have kicked in and any libido he had, and Yohji knew the man had plenty, should be cranked beyond his questionable control. His conscience gave a feeble twitch at endangering a woman like this, but all it took to quiet it was the memory of those bloated corpses in the photos -one of them had once been a friend of Auska's.

Yohji swallowed a snarl and buried it beneath his usual mild expression, stuck a cigarette between his lips, grabbed his cheap lighter and pushed the door open stepping outside while lighting up. Then he froze, the very picture of surprise.

The scene was pretty much as he'd expected it to be. Completely indifferent to right-of-way or property rights the boyfriend had pulled his classic muscle car into the alley back of the bar, completely blocking all access by vehicle, Aiko was currently decorating the car hood and the boyfriend was currently removing Aiko's dress, without unbuttoning it.

Yohji tossed the lighter to empty his hands (the reason he'd bought a cheap one on his way to the bar) and pulled free the chain he'd worn as a belt. "Well I looks like some divine providence sent me a nicotine craving at just the right time." He grinned nastily and wrapped the chain a couple of times around his right hand.

The boyfriend finally looked over his shoulder and noted Aiko's would-be protector. He laughed. "Go back inside man. This ain't any of your business." His voice hardened "Is it Aiko?"

Yohji saw the thought process flicker across her face and he thought to himself, "go on you little bitch, you know you want to -any time you can get two good looking bulls bleeding over you. . .." He flashed her his sexy, reassuring smile and that seemed to decide her.

She took the opportunity to slip free of the boyfriend's grasp and slide clear of the hood. Pulling her dress together in a show of fake modesty, she made her play. Unwilling to completely ditch the boyfriend she did her best scared voice, something she could talk her way out of if Yohji _wasn't_ tougher. "I,.. I.." she stammered.

"There you go." Thought Yohji, the utter predictability of most people to the rescue again. He decided it was enough and went into his tough act.

"Aiko, stay out of the way." He jerked the chain taut in an aggression display and started in.

The boyfriend snatched his classic tire iron from his classic muscle car and swept it for Yohji's face.

Yohji calmly, quickly, side stepped and leaned out of the way of the improvised club, letting the boyfriend's momentum pull him forward. While the man was still trying to recover from his missed swing Yohji slid back in and brought the meter of heavy chain around in a flashing arc that ended on the boyfriend's kneecap, with a wet crack!

Yohji flicked the loose end away from the man's leg and around his own left hand. He stopped it with enough momentum to wrap twice and he let go with his right. He spun the chain quick, twice, _counterclockwise_ and dropped his arm, letting the man's ass and nuts stop it this time. He got a stifled groan for his efforts and the man dropped; letting out a shriek as his weight came down on his broken kneecap.

Yohji spun the chain back onto his right hand again – four wraps this time and stepped forward bringing his hand down on the unfortunate boy friend's head and putting him out of the fight for good and all this time.

Yohji kicked the man on the hip, which let him surreptitiously check that he was still breathing, which he was, and straighted. He turned into an armful of artfully sobbing Aiko.

To a litany of Yohji's gentle "there theres". Aiko spent the next five minutes sobbing about how horrible her boyfriend had been and how _grateful_ she was for Yohji's rescue and how much she wanted to show her gratitude. Yohji was assured of the scope of her gratitude by the vastness of personal assets she managed to uncover for him in the course of the brief five minutes.

Yohji buried a weary sigh at the inevitability of it all and agreed that the man was terrible, and shouldn't he get her to his own super 7 and home so she could recover?.

By morning Aiko had her new fighter and Yohji had his 'in' into the fights, which was what mattered anyway.

---|---

Yuusuke sauntered into Genkai's temple much the way he arrived anywhere. Radiating a sense of command and presence that immediately claimed 'top dog'. Unfortunately for any coolness factor, all it got him was a tolerant smirk from Kurama, a snort from Hiei, and a back-poundingly enthusiastic greeting from Kuwabara.

Genkai allowed them all a moment while Yuusuke shared a forearm-embrace with Kurama and exchanged snarls with Hiei. They had all changed so much since their student days and yet so little. Yuusuke and Hiei were ageless of course. Kurama she knew hadn't quite sorted out what his future would be and she suspected that he feared returning to the Makai, that it might leech from his soul all the gentleness and wisdom his beloved mother had taught him. But she expected that his foxy curiosity, which even his human life hadn't really dimmed, would keep him from choosing to remain in the Ninjenkai to eventually age and die... or perhaps it would drive him to it. For the moment he seemed content to age or at least appear to age normally. Not truly out of his prime it seemed he'd deferred that decision.

Even Kuwabara though had changed very little, while he'd changed the most. The last of his adult growth had added an inch or two making him almost too tall -as if his enormous reiki had been pushing his body, trying to make its dwelling space big enough. When he could no longer grow up he had grown not out, but strangely in. His muscles effortlessly dense and corded; the planes of his face settling into granite angles beneath his always fluid expression. He had acquired a sense of gravitas that made him seem as immobile as a mountain, as variable yet changeless as the seas. She suspected that he would, her second apprentice but not her heir, take after her more in this. He would remain hale through the summer and autumn and long after the deepest frost of winter turned his tangerine pompadour white. Only when Botan visited the last time would he finally slow down.

Genkai shook herself from the morbid direction of her thoughts. "Alright boys! Enough screwing around." Kuwabara and Yuusuke looked up from their noogie battle and separated -abruptly all business. Genkai nodded her satisfaction, "While each of you was busy making arrangements to be free of your individual responsibilities so you could be involved in this I had Botan do some research for me so I'm going to be handling this briefing."

She picked up the remote and activated the first file on the DVD -Reikai technology having _finally_ caught up with the more recent innovations. "This case actually goes back to the second case the four of you worked, even if some people thought their involvement was unknown at the time." She glared sternly but amusedly at Hiei.

"Tarukane" Hiei hissed as the man's image came up on the screen. "He's dead."

"And damned" Genkai answered. "The problem is not him directly but his circle of former employees and his "Black Book Club." The screen changed again to show four pictures. "The first picture here should be familiar," it showed a man in bow tie and tails his dark brown hair elaborately curled and his thin mustache heavily waxed. "Sakashita, Tarukane's butler/gofer/right hand man. Next to Sakashita, the bald, white bearded, evil looking old git is the last of the surviving Black Book club. The other two are unknowns."

She clicked the controller and the top portraits shrank as the bottom enlarged. On the left was the image of a portly man in a white suit and on the right a woman in formal dress and heavy stage makeup. "The man was the aid of a woman who ran a death match tournament until her own death by assassination some months ago. The woman is as yet completely unidentified. Of course _someone_ the Reikai has available to question must know who she is but so far there seems to be no connection to the other leaders of this Nigre Libro Decuria that leads Botan's investigators to her."

"Nigre Libro Decuria -that sounds Latin." Kurama broke in "Black Libro something?"

"Yes," Genkai answered "It's a rather clumsy translation of "Black Book Club into Latin.", she shrugged "I guess they don't have any linguists available. The Nigre Libro Decuria is the money machine behind this project. Oddly enough for an organization that named themselves in bad Latin they bill themselves as a legitimate religion -'a new offshoot of Shinto for the warrior of today'. Morons. They recruit most of their congregation from the upper middle class which gives them lots of money in donations and a way to hide even more." she paused for other questions and then continued when no one asked any. "That's most of what the Reikai knows at the moment about the players. What they're doing? They're trying to revive the Dark Tournament. Which of course, involves you four."

Hiei snorted. "I say let them. I keeps the mass of fools busy watching the self-declared elite fools kill each other. The only problem I see is they're trying to cut us out of our rightful due as the champions."

"Which is something I intend to get fixed right off." replied Yuusuke. "Besides which Hiei, you know it's more than that."

"Yes, indeed." Kurama spoke up. "The Dark Tournament was an artifact of the previous political climate in the Makai, if it were to start up again its very existence would be a threat to Enki's administration and the current state of things -at which each of us would suffer."

"yeah, but-" Kuwabara broke in, leafing through his folder "I don't see any demon names here. I mean yeah, the original Tournament was run by human money guys right? But you still had demons involved -Toguro's crowd, damn near every other competitor, not to mention staff- Koto, Jury, that 'nurse' Ruka, -how can they call it the Dark Tournament without the Champions or the staff? Besides... the list of dead is almost entirely human."

"If you idiots will let me get to the rest of the explanation before I die of old age?" Genkai interrupted. She paused to make sure she had their attention again. "For reasons were not sure of, this Nigre Libro Decuria has made some significant changes to their Dark Tournament. None of the dead questioned know why and only a couple knew any of the what. First, they are recruiting exclusively from the Tokyo area. We don't know what they're after but they're apparently willing to kill a lot of moderately tough and nasty humans to get it. The demon competitors don't even seem to be involved until the successful early-round human competitors get shipped offshore to the Decuria's training island. Only then do the humans start fighting demons. Second, we don't know where they're getting their demons. The Reikai keeps a fairly close eye on the Makai pit fighting circuit and almost none of the Makai professional fighters have turned up in connection to this at all. The demons they do have are all unknowns." She paused significantly, "Really unknowns. Those questioned have even described a few _species_ of demon that aren't familiar at all or that were thought extinct. There's more but they are fairly tiny details. All together the political consequences and lack of information as to what this bunch is really up to makes it absolutely vital to get to the bottom of this." She caught Yuusuke's eye, "And break it up."

"So," Yuusuke bounced to his feet "What do we know that's going to help us do that?"

"Very little," Kurama answered, looking at the folder again. "They seem to hold their 'qualifiers' at floating locations. Use a warehouse or a parking garage or a construction site for a week or so and then move to another location leaving none the wiser. No one uses traceable identities. As all the regular staff are masked the informants couldn't even give descriptions. Just the temporary locations."

"So?" Hiei broke in "How recent is our information?"

Kurama checked the dates, "two days."

"Then", Hiei continued "They should still be using the most recent site. We break up their party and then break them until they tell us what we want to know."

The four Reikai Tantei exchanged glances and agreement. Yuusuke grinned as he leaned over the paperwork in Kurama's hands "Then where are we going fox?"

---|---

The place was obvious from blocks away, at least to the reikai tantei. The 'abandoned' warehouse pulsed with the spirit energy of focused aggression. The building throbbed like an open wound to their reiki sensitive senses.

"Just in case there is any way you missed it." Kuwabara said "that's gotta be it."

"Even you couldn't miss that," sneered Hiei.

"Don't get started you two." Yuusuke cut in abruptly. "I realize that there isn't anything dangerous to us in there but I am taking this very seriously." He matched stares with each of them, "I want this damned professional. No goofing off. I want every standing thing in there down in less than ten minutes. I want none of them leaving. Kurama -close up all the exits: all of them. Every door, window, vent I want something green blocking it up. Except the front door." He looked to Kuwabara, "That's where you are. I want none of them getting past you. Use a kekkai to back you up if you want but I figure-" he grinned rather nastily, "that you'd rather take them down the old fashioned way." Kuwabara's hand flexed around a hilt that wasn't there. "Hiei and I will be going in the roof. and will herd them toward you." He caught Kuwabara's gaze again. "You understand why you are taking the door?"

Kuwabara nodded, though he didn't look exactly happy about it. " you want me at the door in case it comes to killing any of them. Because I'm human."

Yuusuke nodded "Yes. If you have to kill anyone it won't violate Enma's ban. Don't lose any sleep over it Kuwabara. These people are, most of them, the scum of the earth. I doubt there are ten people in that place that aren't headed for one hell or another all on their own." He placed a hand on Kuwabara's shoulder, "That's the other reason I want you at the door big man. You still have the best E.S.P. of us. If any of them do deserve to live you stand the best chance of catching it."

Kuwabara slowly nodded in return and Yuusuke address all the tantei again, "Once we're done we'll leave a gas leak or something to account for it and call the police or something. Ready?"

With a chorus of nods the four of them broke to their assignments.

And that's the way the fight went.

Afterward, Hiei toed another unconscious body out of his way. This one he noticed was different than the others. Not only that it was female, there had been a number of those, both as decoration and a couple of combatants; but that it was dressed much more expensively than even the pushers in the room and had fallen on a very upscale laptop. "Urameshi!" he called "I think I may have found tonight's organizer." That brought the other three tantei across the room quickly.

"That's great Hiei!" responded Yuusuke "How do you know?"

Hiei held out the laptop computer. "I didn't open it to check -I don't want to activate any security but unless one of you found another laptop this upscale?"

The others shook their heads and Kuwabara answered "Some very nice palm computers, but it looks like this crowd was pretty much a cell phone bunch. If you actually found a computer I think you have it."

"Even better." Said Yuusuke. "I bet everything we need to know to start messing up this ring is in there. So open it up and look already!"

"Yuusuke, " Kurama interrupted, "security? It is very likely that if we even open it without the proper key, that the machine is set to destroy the hard drive."

"Damn, Yuusuke answered. You're probably right."

"If you'll have a little patience Yuusuke, Kuwabara and I will go to my place and see what we can extract."

"What do you need the big oaf for?" Hiei asked "Any of us have the technology in the Makai to rip anything out of that box we might need. What help can he possibly be?"

"You little-"

Kurama smoothly interposed himself with the ease of long practice "Hiei, You know nothing about human computer operating systems and little more about the hardware." He nodded at the tall man to include him "Neither Kuwabara nor I are precisely crackers -but between us we either have the necessary skill set or know where to get it. And if we are in danger of making a disastrous mistake Kuwabara's ESP will automatically warn us. Something even your Jagan eye won't do. So I will disable any mechanical traps with a plant, we will remove the hard drive, magically create a duplicate backup and then we will crack it."

"That sounds complicated," frowned Yuusuke. "How long will all of this take?"

Kuwabara and Kurama held a quick visual conference and Kuwabara grinned, "depending on how well you two keep us supplied with caffeine and snacks -and how bad the security is, twelve to forty eight hours. Don't worry Yuusuke," he added when the frown deepened, "remember who you're dealing with. The security doesn't exist that the fox can't crack. We'll get in there."

"Fine." Yuusuke whirled around and stalked to the door. "Get started, the time tables we pulled off the other machines in the room suggest this qualifier process is almost over: this is taking time we haven't got already."


	3. Chapter 3

Author's Notes:

I hate author's notes. However, this story needs a real title, still.

I own neither YuYu Hakusho nor Weiss Kruez. Only the plot, narrative, and the occasional, (brief), OC are mine.

Connections

Chapter Three

Ken checked the tape on the cut over his eye again. Thank whoever you liked that Weiss were all good healers. He snorted to himself, as a kid he'd never thought that quick healing would become such a valuable asset. Come to think about it, he actually healed much faster even than he had as a kid. Wasn't that really supposed to slow down once you got through puberty? Maybe it was like anything else, you improved with practice. Another day or two with the tape and that split over his eye would be good and closed. He might even be able to take it off tonight, the associated black eye was already gone. When he was hit by that car at six an almost identical slice on his hip had needed three stitches. Ken chuckled at the memory. He suspected, now, that the some of the stitches had been given by the doctor for the sake of Ken's manly pride. He sighed and gave the spot one last exploratory poke. And leaned back to survey the whole. The mirror was large enough to show his full torso. Looking at his collection of cuts and bruises Ken was just relieved that they'd closed the shop for a "buying trip". He looked like Manchester United and Liverpool had played a grudge match and mistaken him for the ball. Since he'd been there while Omi put Yohji back together after his last fight Ken knew the other Weiss looked no better. If it wasn't for Weiss' superstar recovery ability neither of them would last long enough to get to the targets. They worked their bodies as hard as any professional athlete but didn't get million-dollar medicine backing them up. Too bad the cut probably wasn't going to get the chance to finish closing -he had another fight tomorrow.

He slipped into his jeans and pulled his top on and considered the effect, deciding it was OK. The extra training he was putting in at the behest of his "handler", who thought it was the only training Ken was getting, was starting to show. With the extra hour or more a day on top of the two a day and four twice a week he already put in for Weiss, the bulking-up Ken was getting as a consequence was just short of alarming. He'd expect results like this -maybe, if he was using steroids. Ken was fairly sure he wasn't. After Kase he brought his own water to the workouts and watched it closely, but this was ridiculous. The damn shoulder seam on his shirt was visibly strained. Ken's own training was carefully designed to maximize his force and flexibility while minimizing the appearance of muscles. A florist cover could only explain so much in the way of visible musculature, and 'florist' muscles, even ex-pro-soccer-star florist muscles, were a far cry short of the strength a hand-to-hand killer needed. It was a problem all of Weiss faced, (especially Yohji with his hedonistic life-style and bare-midriff dress sense). Hence Ken's carefully balanced workout. A balance that his handler's clumsy weightlifting regime was blowing all to hell. It was actually beginning to concern Ken not to mention to piss him off. On second thought, could he be sure that asshole wasn't slipping something into the ventilation at the gym? Definitely time to pitch a fit and get his own trainer. Temper tantrums: another similarity he was finding between this underground fight scene and the professional soccer scene.

Yeah, he gave his reflection a determined nod and left the bathroom, heading for Aya's flat. Time for a good, traditional, meditation and such Sensei to shut his stupid "manager" up. Aya would be perfect. And considering the work Aya had already put into prepping two or three possible identities, they could be ready to go in time to introduce him at this afternoon gym session -hopefully the _last_ afternoon gym session. He might have to put up with getting the shit beat out of him on an increasingly frequent basis but he'd be dammed if he'd let them have control of his body too.

---|---

Ken pushed the door open and stepped from the bright, hot, muggy exterior to the air conditioned, muggy, dim, (and cheap) gym interior. His keeper spotted him immediately. "Hey, Ken man, hurry up and get changed!" He gestured to the bag on Ken's shoulder, "We gotta get started! I booked Ryu man, Ryu! And we only have him for an hour..."

Ken rolled his eyes, funny how this jerk was always "us" this and "us" that, when Ken was doing all the work. He interrupted. "That's OK, we won't need him anymore, I brought my old Sensei -he's going to handle my training now." Ken gestured behind, "Meet Master Chen".

Aya stepped from behind Ken, and out of the glare of the doorway, becoming fully visible to the men inside for the first time. Of course this Aya would have passed un-squealed, and un-hugged, if not unnoticed, by the shop girls.

From somewhere, Aya had produced a thin mustache that crossed his upper lip and hung straight down from the corner of his mouth on each side. Several hair extensions and a thorough dye job had hidden his distinctive red mop and produced a long, deeply black, braid that hung just past his waist. He wore a deep brown kimono with a feathery pheasant print in a brilliant emerald green, geta, a purple silk cap with a tassel, sleek black-and-silver wrap-around sunglasses to hide the purple eyes and finished the whole ensemble off with a gnarled walking stick that he carried as if he needed it.

Aya bowed to the room in general. Ken had no idea how he'd pulled it off, but somehow Abyssinian had managed a polite gesture that, while technically perfect; called into question the honor, intelligence and parentage of every man in the room; Ken hoped with himself excepted. Maybe it was something to do with the banker's-son training that was ground into Aya's soul. Ken had always, even at the height of his fame and wealth, considered himself "blue collar". He'd no idea how to go about calling someone the scum of the earth without a word, all the while looking so serene and magnanimous.

The handler and the trainer were clearly at a total loss as to how to deal with it for several silent and heavy seconds; during which Aya waited for them, with obvious tolerant patience, to arrive at some conclusion. Finally Ken's handler shook himself, literally, out of his stupor, and his sense of self preservation started talking. As Ken was his meal ticket, anyone else this close was a threat. "now Ken." The man flipped the lapels on his jacket up and down in his personal nervous figit, "Ryu is the best! I'm sure umm..." he paused as if searching for the name, "Master Chen", he butchered the pronunciation, "is um,... a very spiritual", he made the words ooze with sleaze and sordid implications, "um... Sensei-" again with the sleaze, "but old fashioned techniques can't -"

Aya interrupted coldly, "Hidaka-san has been my student for years, long before your..." Aya flung the accusation of impropriety back, with an almost- imperceptible and elegant twist of his lip, "acquisition. And under my tutelage he has never suffered disability or poor performance. Indeed, had modern science," he loaded the words with scorn, and turned to look pointedly at a nearby sports drink, "left him alone, he would have remained beyond your reach. Ken has assured me of his intent to pursue this course of action. Therefore I will ensure his health and welfare."

The handler blinked, again taken aback, and looked at the trainer as if to say, "are you going to take that?" Ryu gave him a nasty look and shrugged, "If your fighter wants this guy -it's no big thing to me -I can get other jobs,"

"Now wait a minute!" the handler interrupted, "I want the best for my guy! And so does the organization! Weak fighters make for weak fights!" He looked at Ken, "Ken," he stepped over to Ken and put an overly brotherly hand on his shoulder, "I realize that you have good reason to distrust the whole world, including the organization, but believe me -my _job_ is your best interest! You do realize that I get a percentage based on every purse you win? The better you do the better _I_ do! Surely you can trust _that_, right? And believe me when I say -Ryu's the best of the best! You need a _fighter_ trainer. Not someone with general skills, but someone who can train you for the _ring_, who _knows_ fighting! Ryu's a retired champion! And however good Chang-san is..." he smiled ingratiatingly at Aya, "he can't beat _that!_"

"Hun." grunted Ken, "and what if he can? Will you back off and let me have my own choice for trainer? 'Cause I tell you now man, if you won't I'll walk now -and you can find yourself someone else to be your chump." He folded his arms and dug his feet into the floor.

Suddenly the handler was backpedaling, "now, now Ken, lets not be hasty! You're the next tournament champion! I, we, the whole organization just want what's best for you-"

"Stuff it." Ken interrupted, "save the bull-shit for people stupid enough to buy it." He leaned forward, suddenly aggressive and shook his fist in the handler's face. "I know better. I'm only the champion if I win, and that's not decided yet. and it won't ever be if I walk out of here right now and never come back. Don't think I won't. I need that purse, but not enough to let you steamroller me. Understood? yes or no."

"Yes". The man looked positively worried.

Ken nodded, he looked over at Ryu, "you willing to put your fists where his mouth is?" Confused but willing to play along the man shrugged. Ken looked back at his handler "Your whole point is to get me to win right? You like get a big bonus if I make it to the training camp, another if I make it through the semi's, and a huge payoff if I win, right?" His trainer reluctantly nodded. "OK", Ken continued as he walked over to the ring. He tossed his bag and jacket to Aya and bent to undo his sneakers. "This trainer of your's is the best right?" he passed his shoes to Aya who had come to stand beside him and dived under the ropes. He rolled his shoulders "Grab one of the guys on the machines to ref. If your man can put me down or lock me up for at least a five count, best two out of three, I'll do what you want. Otherwise I get Master Chen, no questions, no arguments. Thats my deal. Take it or I just take my ball and go home."

The handler looked like he was swallowing his tongue. Either way he lost. On one hand, let the "talent" start dictating the terms of their own lives and they would keep doing it. On the other hand his own masters had been very pleased with Ken's _development_ so far and he would not fare well to lose him. Finally he through his hands in the air and said, "OK by me." he looked over at Ryu, who shrugged and said, "I haven't had a good fight in a while." and dived under the rope onto the canvas, rolling to the opposite side of the ring from Ken.

---|---

"Ken", Ken put his foot up on the locker room bench to finish tying his shoe and looked over his shoulder at Ryu. Ryu smiled and tapped his chin in the same place he'd left a purpling bruise on Ken, "heh, sorry about that -I do try not to mark up people I'm just sparring with, but you were _way_ to close and I really needed to back you off."

A soft "shhrshh" of closing door marked the departure of the only other person in the locker room; suddenly they were alone. The smile dropped from Ryu's face and he stepped in close to Ken, far too close. Ken wasn't sure why he allowed it, but for some reason he didn't feel threatened, so he waited. "Ken," Ryu began again, almost too softly for Ken to hear. "Your manager is an idiot, but you know that." Ken nodded and Ryu continued. "You know as well as I do that for all the tough guys in that gym today, there were only three truly dangerous men in the building. You, me, and that Chang you were claiming for a trainer." Ken nodded again. "You do realize that I threw that to get you the training you wanted right?" Ken nodded a third time, it had been clear the first hold he broke that Ryu was just testing him. At that point if this hadn't been a mission Ken just might have been willing to train with the man.

Ryu nodded back. "I knew you'd notice. Let me tell you a few other things I know. First I know Chang isn't Chinese -oh, you guys did a good job of implying it -any prejudiced bastard would assume exactly what you want him to assume. Which leads me to the next thing I know; you're being too careful and in fact too damn good, for you to be involved in this underground tournament by accident. I don't know what the two of you are up to but I can tell it's not just chasing a purse, I can also tell you no one's going to find out about it from me. You're the second fighter I've been asked to train for this." He shook his head regretfully, "the last one was a starry eyed kid chasing a good fight and in the end I agreed because I thought my training might keep him alive long enough that I could help him get out of it." He caught Ken's gaze and held it, "It didn't. He died at a level of combat you've already passed. And that brings me to the next thing I know. Something you don't. I don't know what training you hope to get from your friend, I've fought you, so I'm certain that you're both competent -but even though this," he tapped Ken's fist, "is not your weapon. You've gotten almost as good as you can get with it. You're almost ready for more; things my last student here could never have reached." He pulled out a card. "Ken, I don't know why you're involved in this, though I suspect it's something terrible -there is no joy in your sane punches and no sanity in the few that are joyful. I know that combat is not what you first planned for a career. But Ken, you are good. Very good. Very soon Chang's training won't be enough." He tapped Ken's fist with the card. "The time is coming soon when this will burn for something Chang can neither teach you nor help you find. And Ken, the lack of it has driven men mad before. When this fist of your's burns, when you don't know what to do next, call me." He tucked the card between Ken's fingers. "And bring Chang, I don't think he has very long either." With a last comradely punch in the shoulder Ryu walked past Ken and out the locker room door.

---|---

Yuusuke walked in just as Kuwabara finished plugging in the truly big screen; sitting on a vast, black, Ptolemaic, (whatever that was), ebony chest. He shook his head at himself. She might look ancient but in some ways Genkai would _never_ be old. He really didn't know why it would still surprise him that she would have the newest electronics next to antique stuff.

"So," he said, finding a comfortable spot and settling himself as Hiei dropped from the rafters. "what have we got?"

"Less that we would like." answered Kurama

"What does that mean?" asked Hiei.

"It means." said Kuwabara, "That we still don't have any locations but we do have people." Pictures of fighters filled the screen. "Most of these guys have fairly complete dossiers. Addresses, jobs if they have them, standings in the preliminaries; everything."

"The pictures you're seeing now," Kurama took over as Kuwabara started clicking through screens, four portraits to a screen. "Are the current top seats in the preliminary. The next wave sent to the 'training facility' will come from this group. If we follow any of these men they should lead us higher or at least get us the location of that island."

"Wait!" Yuusuke interrupted. "Kuwabara- back up a screen."

Kuwabara looked puzzled but quickly obliged.

"There." pronounced Yuusuke, "Thats the one. That guy on the bottom right. Can you focus on him?"

"Sure" Kuwabara clicked a couple of buttons and the picture filled the screen.

The picture was of a scowling brunette, his smooth fall of shaggy hair trailing in his eyes. The skin of his face was smooth, lacking the scars of violence and the creases of self abuse that characterized so many of the other photos. Until you looked in the eyes. Something had turned those eyes that should have been a warm melting brown into hard, flat agates. Kuwabara's statement of protest died on his lips changing instead into a question. "Do we want just the one then? "

"There's no job or address information on this one." Kurama added.

"Pick someone easier then." Hiei waved a dismissive hand brusquely. "It doesn't really matter which of them we follow."

"No." said Yuusuke flatly. "Pick a second one. Just in case but... ." He shook his head, "I know that face... somewhere. . .." He shook the introspective mood off and continued. "Hiei and I will follow this guy and Kuwabara and Kurama you follow our second guy." Kuwabara nodded absently flipping through portraits.

"Could you be any slower?" Hiei growled.

Kurama and Yuusuke shot him a look.

"I've really focused and improved the ESP in the last couple years shorty." Kuwabara said absently "But it's still not a precision thing." He paused for a few clicks, "I just have to keep going until the right one well... resonates. I won't know until I get to-" he froze. "And there he is. That guy. Me and Kurama should follow him -he won't have address information or work information either. We're going to have to pick them both up wherever they were recruited, these people tend to use the recruitment site as point-of-contact, or after one of their fights. But if Yuusuke and Hiei follow the brunette then Kurama and I follow this blond."

The picture was a full torso where the brunette had been a head shot. It was of a lanky young man with a lazy posture and shoulder length blond hair tied back, escaping strands falling into eyes hidden by sunglasses.

"OK, then we know what we're doing." Said Yuusuke, "oh do these guys have names? "

"Yes." answered Kurama as he handed a picture and page of information to Kuwabara and Yuusuke. "They do. Ours," he nodded to Kuwabara, "Is called Kudo Yohji. And yours," he nodded to Yuusuke, "is named Hidaka Ken."

---|---

Yohji dropped the cigarette he was chewing, sprinted between cars to the bus on the other side of the road, and dived in just as the driver was closing the door. Omi had asked once, pulling things out of his just washed jeans, why he bothered with a mass transit card when he had the super7 racer. If only Omi could see him now. This wouldn't drop his tail for _sure_, but there _was_ a major stop coming up. Yohji pull his knitted cap, the most fashionable headgear this season, from inside his coat and pulled it over his hair, (just like five or six of the teenagers around him -most of whom exchanged looks of disgust with each other when they thought he wasn't watching). Then he pulled his coat off, rolled it up behind the seat he was sitting in and switched the straps around. When the major stop arrived, two or three dozen people exited the bus in a crowd which was full of tired, slouching, ordinary people with too much luggage and too many packages, but no secret agents or prize fighters.

Kurama and Kuwabara followed the bus almost to the next stop before Kuwabara swore and told Kurama to turn around. Of course by then it was too late.

Ken had the Limo drop him off in front of the apartment building the organization had rented for him. He'd won his last flash-fight that evening and his handler had taken him out to celebrate reaching the "big-time". False dawn would be coming soon and though it was still night-dark outside he could already hear the city's morning wild life waking up. Usually he'd come here, use the bathroom to patch himself up, turn out the lights so the cameras couldn't really follow him, mess up the bed so it would look used in the morning and then crawl out through the bathroom ceiling and go home, where he could dare to sleep, while the timer Omi had put on the shower head ran the water to cover the noise. Unfortunately somebody; short, dark-haired and wearing leather or vinyl, had made four out of seven stops with the party tonight and that was just a few to many for Ken to think it was coincidence. He was being followed, which meant no shut-eye till he lost the tail.

Ken sauntered off down the street, slipping his fighting gloves back on inside his pockets, away from the residential/ retail neighborhood toward an older industrial section of the area. When his handler had first installed him here he'd taken a day's wander to learn the streets for just this kind of situation. He'd flirted with a couple of the local street walkers, hit all the bars, bought something from the most obvious drug dealer, (it has gone straight down the toilet so he still had no real idea _what _it was), and memorized or re-memorized every corner, streetlight, fire escape, bus, cab, school or business schedule in the neighborhood. This semi-industrial part of the area almost shut down at night -a few late-shift deliveries for the next day, but almost no people, and almost no light. as soon as Ken crossed the street out of the light of the corner's street lamp, he leapt into a sprint. He'd like to meet the yakuza wannabe that could keep this kind of speed up as long as he could.

Faintly behind him he can hear the patter of feet coming closer, not very -but still. They were catching him. Ken leaned forward and put a little more speed on. This section of town had another two or three miles tops. At his best speed he had thirty seconds or so before his muscles started to burn and began to refuse him. He was already driving his breath into a deliberate rhythm. Ten seconds to break away, ten to get clear and ten to lose them. _Nine, eight, seven_, (faster, faster, faster), veer into the street to get around the steel pick-up box near the corner and immediately pivot back to cut close to the light pole, _five seconds_ to his target corner-

The quarry broke into a flat run and Yuusuke heard Hiei swear into his mind, "He just got his face ground to a pulp, spent several hours drinking like a damn fish and the stupid human thinks he's going to be outrunning me?"

This telepathy stuff still surprised Yuusuke every now and then -but he had to admit it made conversations during a chase _much_ easier. "Yeah, and-" the suspect put on another sudden burst of speed, "so far he's doing it".

Ken leapt the last two steps to the pole without slowing, hoping he was going fast enough he reached his left hand out at the top of the leap and grabbed the pole, swinging his legs up to speed his rotation and then snapping them behind himself to throw his upper body forward to catch with his right hand, if he was going fast enough, the bottom rung of the fire-escape ladder... . Shit! too fast! _Way_ too fast, no time- he'd be past the rung-. Faster than Ken believed it was possible to, his left hand snapped back and grabbed the rung just before he'd gone too far. His abruptly arrested motion yanked hard on his shoulder and he felt the expected burn, though thankfully no accompanying pop, as his body swung back around its new pivot and he immediately started hand-over-hand, no time for feet, up to the roof. Ken flipped himself over the ledge, rolled and came up running. He'd lost his count at "Shit!" so he didn't know how much time he had -better push it and worry about the price later. He hit the far edge of the roof full out and soared across to the next roof, rolled and came up sprinting for home.

Hiei turned the corner the fighter had disappeared around and stopped so abruptly that Yuusuke almost ran into him. "What the hell Hiei!" Yuusuke burst out, and stopped, the alley was empty.

"I've had enough of this shit!" Hiei growled. He flashed to the top of the building, Yuusuke right behind him. Four warehouses away, Yuusuke saw their target clear the gap between buildings again, and keep right on going. No way to chase him now without tipping their hands. Hiei ripped the bandage of his Jagan and popped it open, staring at their quarry. "I've got him marked now, Yuusuke. Doesn't matter where in the Ninjenkai he goes, my Jagan can find him." He shook his head, "I'm embarrassed to be forced to use it to track a human."

"Doesn't exactly run like a human does he?"

Hiei's lips twisted in a sour sneer, "No he doesn't. Humans aren't supposed to be that fast."

Yuusuke gave him an introspective look. "Hiei, you've always had a bad habit of underestimating humans. Me," Hiei snorted and Yuusuke responded, "Hiei I _used_ to be human. And it wasn't just me, it was Genkai, all the territory psychics, and you still underestimate Kuwabara-". Hiei snorted again and Yuusuke grinned, "though that might be for personal reasons." He gestured at the rooftops. "Kuwabara could have made that no problem, and don't forget those human adepts that Ichigaki was controlling in our Dark Tournament. It really shouldn't surprise any of us to find the tournament leaders pushing the definition of "regular human"."

Hiei looked up at Yuusuke. "You've made your point." He jumped back to the ground and waited for Yuusuke to join him, "but keep the details of this little fiasco to yourself, I don't imagine you've any more interest in hearing Kuwabara's poor wit sharpened on us than I do. All anyone needs to know is that we're tracking him with the Jagan. Agreed?'

Yuusuke grinned "Agreed." They turned and strolled back the way they'd come.

Omi growled to himself and threw his stress toy across the room and against the wall, where it left another dent and slid gracelessly down to the floor to leak sand from it's burst seams. "Oh well," Omi thought, scrubbing cramped fingers over his tired blue eyes and up through his messy chestnut hair, "Time for another one. At least it didn't die in vain." He felt much better now. Much less like smashing things. It would have been a shame to demolish this little slice of hacker heaven. Omi considered one of the few perks of his job to be the electronics. He always had the latest stuff, even if it didn't _look_ like the latest stuff. He had dual core portable desktops in laptop cases. He had broadband anywhere there was cell service. There was no heat to his apartment because the server farm hidden in his wall supplied all the heat he'd ever need (and wasn't that hell in the summers). He'd had a T1 or better connection as long as he could remember and a personal back door into every major news, police, finance, research, utility service or university mainframe in the country. And all the free electricity he could ever want to run it -courtesy of those utility service back doors. If the information existed in _any_ electronic format he could have it whether it was on an internet or an intranet, and in minutes or hours mind you, not days. None of which helped the slightest when none of the information he wanted or needed, for either problem, seemed to be stored electronically.

The personal project, which he conducted on "jumper cable" Internet off the neighbor's network using his latest untraceable stolen laptop, he could almost understand being unsuccessful. After all -conduct all the Internet searches you like, and he had, you wouldn't _really_ expect any real sorcerers to be on the digital frontier. The frustrating thing was that he was certain that some of his hits had been successful, but he himself was too ignorant to be able to sift the wheat from the chaff. And the back doors were no better. He'd tried the national news sources -as far back as thirty years on some of them, and the police records and all he'd got for his searches about "pink mist" and "mystic" were seven reports of sakura blooming out-of-season, one incident about a decade ago, and two dozen or so "magical girl" events or nut cases.

His official work, conducted through the desktop on his desk and the server farm in the wall, and half a dozen fake identities on twitter, face-book, cell phone and via email, turned up no better. These illegal fights were arranged these days much like raves or flash crowds. The host would, if they bothered to fix the location up at all, descend on some suitably empty location a few hours before the event, convert the derelict building into their fighting casino, and then have the employees twitter two friends, and they tell to friends, and so on. The party happens, gets cleaned up and gone -start to finish in less than ten hours -long before they police could possibly get authorization to raid it. The fights Ken and Yohji had been involved in so far had run just like this.

Truly wealthy customers, however, might come to the occasional "flash fight" for the thrill, but if they were to be lured back it would require opulence that necessitated permanence. So where the. . . were they?

Omi had reviewed the full intelligence on the last human chess and to judge by the records the local street chatter, electronic and otherwise, should have the underworld buried in gossip about crimelords taking an interest in the sport of kings. The only references Omi could find to tournaments all resolved to be very legitimate sports tournaments of one sort or another. Last time the street had been _humming_ about human chess, the oh-so-illegal concept monitors on the cell systems were pulling hundreds of mentions a day in impromptu codes both clumsy and almost elegant. But now? Omi had deployed his bot army of thousands into the cloud and tapped the cell monitors and had all of Kritiker's on-the-street reports to pick through, and in all of them -nothing. Not one mention of an under ground fight tournament -dark or otherwise. Even the references to purely neighborhood gang confrontations were curiously missing. It was as if these Nigre Decuria _knew_ how they could be tracked, electronically and otherwise, and had not only found a way around it, but swallowed all illegal arranged conflict into themselves and hid it too. Even reports of bar room brawl injuries were down. Omi was certain it was there, but at this rate they were going to have to literally trip over it to find it from the outside.

The possibility that really worried Omi, when he wasted his limited time on it, was that the fights were protected not by high level corruption but by precognition or telepathy like that possessed by Schwartz, (while the the enemy team had disappeared with the Ani museum and never surfaced, surely they were not the only psychics-for-hire in existence), and that the "invitations" were being given at the "right" time for the bots and automated systems to miss.

Unfortunately it looked like Weiss was going to have no choice but to pursue this undercover all the way, and he still lacked a cover. Ken might not be a good long range planner but he was deceptively clever in the short term. That trainer tantrum of his had been perfect to insert Aya.

His stolen laptop beeped and popped his requested list onto the screen. Humm, a dozen names. It looked like Omi would be asking a lot of questions in the near future. He sighed as he noted the time in the bottom of the screen. With the rest of Weiss to deeply buried in Kritiker's mission he was going to have to pursue Weiss' private investigation alone and he'd need to start early tomorrow, or rather early today.

He composed a few lines of report to Manx, telling her of the lack of success electronically tracking Nigre Decuria, and giving her a broad outline of where he planned to be loitering, (Omi what big ears you have), on the street tomorrow; scrambled it, embedded it in a picture of captioned kittens and sent it off to her attached to a cheery email. He shut down his desktop for the night -the server farm would catch any reports from the bots, and printed out the list on his lap top before putting it to bed too. He'd squeeze at least one of these visits in while he was looking for Nigre Decuria or Black Tournament among the gossip of his fellow "teenagers" tomorrow. If the psychic experts wouldn't come to Omi, then Omi must go to the experts. He glanced at the addresses again, he just wished there weren't so many mountains involved. He could get another stress toy tomorrow too -he had the awful feeling he was going to need it.


	4. Chapter 4

Author's Notes:

I hate author's notes. However, this story needs a real title, still.

I own neither YuYu Hakusho nor Weiss Kruez. Only the plot, narrative, and the occasional, (brief), OC are mine.

Connections

Chapter Four

One look at Hiei's face had Genkai ordering him to sit and calling for Yukina to come and serve tea. It wasn't until all four of the Tantei had been served, and finally _enjoyed_ at least one cup of tea that Genkai permitted conversation.

"Well gentlemen, I sense that tailing the targets did not go well." This was met with a chorus of snorts and chuffs of disgust.

"Speaking as one with some experience in matters of the chase," Kurama said, "our target was not the punch-drunk fool we were expecting." His expression was suddenly chagrined, "he lost me." That statement got the room's attention and Yukina nearly dropped the tea cup she was passing to Kuwabara. Kuwabara quickly took it before it could spill and added, "I really think that's just 'cause we were relying on my ESP to let us know when he got off the bus. But thinking about it, it really wouldn't work like that. What I _wanted_ was to keep track of the guy -so with Yuusuke and Hiei chasing the other one, losing Kudoh isn't a disaster, so I wouldn't get a warning." He shook his head. "Sometimes the way my ESP works just frustrates the hell out of me. I wish someone could have written instructions, but it's different for everyone... ." He shrugged. "I'm going to have to take up psychology just to figure out how I'm hiding stuff from myself."

Hiei laughed, "Kuwabara, you are the only one stupid enough to be able to hide from his own ESP."

Yuusuke reached over and grabbed Kuwabara, yanking him back down in his seat before he could lunge across the table and grab Hiei, "don't pay any attention Kuwabara," he said, then added a smirk. "Hiei's just pissed and embarrassed that our target out ran him." That statement was accompanied by three small 'clinks' as Genkai, Kuwabara and Kurama all set their cups down too quickly.

"What," Kurama asked in a soft and measured voice, "do you mean "out ran him"?"

"I mean, the guy covered two blocks, around a corner and to the roof of a four-story warehouse faster than I've ever seen any human outside this room do it. If there was a parkour Olympic event this guy was a medalist for sure. Hiei is faster than I am, I hate to admit it but it's true, and this guy accelerated so fast that Hiei didn't catch up. If he'd known to go full-out to begin with no way would our guy get away, but by the time we realized we weren't in a normal speed chase, he was a couple of roofs away."

"So did you lose him then?" Genkai growled.

"No." Hiei snarled back, "He may have gotten an unexpected head start, but I marked him with the Jagan. I can get him whenever I want him."

"Good." Answered Genkai, "Then finding the location of their tournament is a guaranteed, as long as Hidaka is a finalist. He's fast enough to play 'chase' with Hiei... I hope that means he's a sure thing to make the cut, if he isn't than we have to assume we're dealing with adepts of one sort or another. Not to mention, when he loses we lose our trace to this new tournament."

"Yes," said Kurama, "According to the information we recovered the next round decides who goes to the island, and we have no idea how our 'candidate' will perform aside from the barest win/loss stats. I think we need to get someone in to observe that last bout. Someone the Dark Tournament survivors will not recognize. . .. But who?"

"Well boys, considering this whole thing is "old home week" I can think of a couple of people who might be willing to do you a favor -without involving Koenma. Would you all be willing to owe a _small_ favor -say the size of a fight, to get someone into that audience?"

The Tantei exchanged looks and finally Yuusuke nodded, "OK Genkai, _small_ favor it is, and that's for the project, not per participant!"

Genkai nodded, "I'll take care of it. Meanwhile, you should be plotting your entrance and planning your wardrobes." She got up from the table. "This is going to require a few phone calls. Come back day after tomorrow, I'll have it ready to go.

Omi pulled the cap off his head and used his jacket sleeve to wipe the sweat off his hair line, then plopped the cap back down, bill _properly_ facing the back of his neck, and sighed, He dug the paper out of his pocket to make sure. He wanted to make sure that this was his last "professional" stop. Yep - all the martial arts instructors he'd listed to visit for Weiss' case, he'd visited... all except that 'Ryu', (Omi was certain that was an alias), trainer who'd given Ken his card. The card had only a phone number -cell number at that, but but tracing a phone number to a person, and then a physical address was no harder for Omi than pwning your average n00b. He'd spent all morning visiting martial arts schools and squeezing a couple of mystics in between. So far he had a very solid sense that however this Nigre Decuria was picking up on it's prospects it wasn't by leaning on their Senseis: all the schools he'd visited had been all but unaware of the "Dark Tournament". Omi was beginning to think their recruiters picked prospects out by _smelling_ them -there was almost nothing else left. This Ryu guy however, had _known_ about the tournament. He pushed the door open and walked in to a well lit and airy but narrow and largely featureless room. There was nothing but a polished wood floor, three beautifully painted doors, (one of which he'd just come through), and a very beautiful young woman who was just coming through the left-most of the remaining doors. Omi couldn't help but think of Yohji.

"Welcome," the very beautiful young woman said, "how may I help you?"

Omi had been expecting a school or gym of some sort. This featureless elegance was the most graceful stonewalling Omi had ever seen, but it was stonewalling none the less. Oh well, nothing for it but to go for it. Omi pulled out the card and showed it to her, but didn't give it to her, "I want to speak to this gentleman please."

Omi, who was watching for it caught a brief flicker of tight surprise and recognition around her eyes before the polite face replaced it, "I do not believe I can help you, but if you will be wiling to wait, I will see what I can learn."

Omi smiled and thanked her and leaned against the wall to wait as she passed back through the door she'd come through.

Wanting to make the best use of every idle moment, Omi leaned against the wall and began arranging his Civics report in his head. He'd barely decided paragraph layout when the door opened again and the girl came back. She bowed and asked him to follow her. She led him down a very long hall without doors or windows that ran perpendicular to the outside street and ended in a door to an open courtyard. She opened the door and stood aside for him to go through, closing it behind him. A dark-haired, scowling man of uncertain age was waiting for him in the court yard garden. "You're not Ken." the man challenged, "How do you have the card I gave him?"

The air was suddenly angry and felt too heavy to breathe. The room receded to the edge of his consciousness and the two of them seemed alone in a space empty of anything but themselves. A space most definitely _not _Omi's. He was certain now that this was Ryu though Omi couldn't have said how he knew so completely, and this was inarguably, if inexplicably, _Ryu's _turf. Somehow the man filled the space to its limit with an overwhelming sense of proximity. Omi found himself instantly terrified by a possibility of violent death he could almost taste.

And suddenly Omi was _falling-_

Falling, free falling, is one of the visceral terrors; a primal helplessness. All that is human feels it. It is built into your skull, your inner ear. There is nothing to grab, nothing to be done to save your self, no pain to distract you from knowing what is coming. Nothing but you and approaching extinction and pain. Nothing but, perhaps a shriek of wind past your ears, to match the shriek of denial and rage in your mind. From the first time you fall more than your own height you know that, above a certain number of your-own-heights, when you land, you will break. Falling is one of the death terrors and like any face of death, there is only one way to beat it, master it, control it, for you cannot _end_ it. You acknowledge it, recognize that this may be the limit of your existence, accept that this is so and _set the fear aside_. Omi, long familiar with his own mortality in a way the young should not be, and the violent pressure of another's psyche in a way no one should be, forced a breath of air into his lungs by will and _set the fear aside_.

-Just as suddenly Omi, who had not moved a millimeter, was no longer falling.

Ryu's hand was under his arm helping him to a bench that Omi was sure had not been in the room when he'd entered it. He was embarrassedly grateful for it, as he was inexplicably weak and more than a little dizzy. Ryu set him on the bench and pushed his head between his knees. While Omi carefully regulated his breathing and waited for the spots to clear, Ryu sat next to him and handed Omi back the card. "I'm sorry," he said, "I gave that card to Ken in less than ideal circumstances. When you had it I thought maybe you were with the people who'd taken it from him."

"How," Omi gasped, a little, "do you know I'm not?"

Ryu laughed. "There might be, in that organization, someone who can throw off my full ring presence. But I haven't met them yet. And you -responded, to it much the same way Ken did. The two of you are allies or friends or both. If you have that card he gave it to you freely. Why are you here? Is Ken in trouble?"

"Ken's always in trouble." Omi snorted, surprising himself that he spoke so freely in front of this stranger, "its part of his nature -he attracts it."

Ryu laughed again, a deep, bright sound, "I can see that! Now what can I do for you young man -?"

Omi looked at Ryu for several long moments, just as certain now he could trust this man as he'd been overwhelmed by his presence before. Omi had been a vigilante too long not to trust his "soldier sense" of imminent danger, a sense that after the museum he'd found had expanded into a broader sense of people. Omi _knew_ who he could and couldn't trust with a reflex that frequently kept him alive. A reflex that was telling him to trust this man, that he could, that he needed to. Omi opened his mouth and found himself telling the truth.

"Omi. My name is Tsukiyono Omi. We need answers and Ken thought you might have some."

Ryu nodded, "Unless you want to tell me what the three of you are up to, I don't know how much help I can be but I'll answer what I can."

"The three of us?" Ryu smiled, "You, Ken, and Chang -whatever his real name is."

Omi hesitated. "I would tell you -but its not my, or at least not just my secret to tell. If I speak in general terms and avoid specifics?"

Ryu nodded, "That would be better, yes."

Omi sighed "You know about the Dark Tournament. For reasons that have nothing to do with the purse, the three of us need to get into the final rounds, but we know nothing about it."

Ryu shook his head "Omi, you're a nice young man." He held up a hand, "I know you're tough and capable," he matched stares with Omi, "I _know_ you're tough and capable -but somehow you and Ken, and maybe Chang too have managed to keep a kind of innocence, a purity of motivation that I don't often see at your level. These people Omi, this tournament -this is evil. Join them and they will crush everything you have left. Whatever you're doing -is it really important enough to risk that?

Omi matched his stare right back and answered. "Yes, yes it is."

Ryu sighed and stood, "walk with me -I'll answer what I can about the tournament, but you really need to speak to someone else".

Omi's conversation with Ryu had been profitable in an unexpected way. The man had little more to tell him about the Dark Tournament except to verify many of the conclusions that Omi had already drawn: the tournament was being organized "on the fly" and in Ryu's opinion very well could be using communications that could duck Kritiker's surveillance. Ryu didn't seem to think that the Nigre Nigre Decuria was just a money laundering front but that they might in fact have some supernatural means of organization. He'd actually suggested that Omi seek out the last psychic on his list, had even offered an introduction. Omi was nervous about how seriously the man was taking the possible involvement of, well, monsters and magic, but with everything he'd seen? Omi didn't see much point in willful ignorance. Though as he looked up at the seemingly endless stairs that marched up the _steepest_ part of the very tall hill before him and disappeared through the gate at the top of the ridge he was re-considering that position. Somehow he just knew there were more stairs beyond them that he couldn't see. He looked at the address on the paper Ryu had given him. He looked at the address mounted neatly on the wall in front of the stairs. They matched. Silently cursing his ancestor's universal tendency to stick temples on the top of the tallest peaks they could find, Omi settled his pack and started climbing.

By the time Omi had climbed all the way to the crest of the small mountain/ big hill, been greeted by a very small young woman with very traditional looking Kimono and Obi and very unique _blue_ hair and red contacts, (why red contacts?) which matched her very unique hair ornament, been sat down in front of a very large painting of a very scary guy, (was that supposed to be King Enma of all things?) and served a very proper and extensive tea Omi had just about had it. He considered himself, after living with three alternately homicidal/ suicidal and frequently sociopathic roommates, to have developed patience well beyond his years... but a mountain's patience would be wearing thin at this point, and Omi was no mountain. When the (also extremely) short and _pink haired_ old woman was introduced by the blue haired young woman as, "Master Genkai", with a very straight face and deepest bow of respect Omi almost, almost, threw something.

Genkai for her part almost laughed. It was like having a ghost of equal parts young Kurama and Idiot in her temple again. And unfortunately, it was clear why Ryu had sent her this one. The young man _appeared_ entirely human -but his aura was so infested with demon energies she was surprised he'd made it past the gate unscathed. Whoever this young man was he'd bumped up against the supernatural hard and nasty, and maybe even often. It was also disturbing that the quick call she'd made to Botan after hanging up with Ryu turned up nothing on "Tsukiyono Omi", live or dead.

"Well young man," Genkai began after sitting and taking a sip of her tea. "Why are you here?"

Omi wanted to be irritated, he felt he'd earned it, but just like Ryu earlier this woman's presence controlled the mood of the room. He resented that of course, but somehow he just couldn't work up the outrage to do anything about it -maybe that was the reason behind all the steps, make them too exhausted to argue with you? He sighed, "Ryu sent me, he said he'd call ahead?" The old woman nodded for him to continue. "He said you could answer well, unusual questions."

"Unusual questions?" Genkai prompted.

"Yeah," Omi replied, "like monsters and glowing mist and things like that."

Genkai set her cup down. "Young man, I am far too old to waste time dancing around to get to the point where we both agree that there is more to the world than science can explain. I know this and I sense that whatever you wish were the case you have come to know it too. This temple exists to, and it has long been my business to help both the seen and unseen worlds exist side by side without more conflict than necessary. I think you must tell me everything."

Omi wanted to fidget, he didn't like the idea of trying to lie to this person, but he couldn't tell her _everything._ Demonstrating just how perceptive she was the old woman added, "you may leave the names out if you want but I will need the details."

It seemed like the best deal he was going to get. Omi opened his mouth and told her about the monsters, the mist, and quite unexpectedly told her about the museum, and the _thing_ that had tried to occupy Sakura's body and the searing touch of the Elder's mind as it slammed them around and the cold, cold, water closing over Weiss' heads for what they were sure was the last time. And then, for a final impulse, told her about fighting monsters with pink mists.

Genkai listened to the not-a-boy talk with growing dread. This was the legacy of modern blindness. The current perspective gave them medicine and machines and means to stop the old plagues cold, move anyone anywhere and feed the millions. But it left children like this one, not unlike the Idiot had been, to grow souls as weary and ancient as hers. She heard what this Omi talked around. She had no names, but it was clear that this should-be-boy served one of the many vigilante organizations that existed to "take up the slack" from a police force that was only allowed to address half the problem. And unsurprisingly some one with his kills, she could see the death in his aura, had brushed up against her side of the tracks; and then this "Esset" had dragged him and his friends right over the cliff into the thick of it. Now, it was only a matter of time. If it wasn't for the immediacy of the current problem she'd make Omi and his friends move into the temple right now if she had to have Yuusuke kidnap them. Finally Omi ran down and out of things to say, and stopped. Waiting for her.

Genkai set her cup down again and bowed her head with a sigh. "Tsukiyono, I'm afraid there is no choice. I don't know what you're messed up in that pits you against demons and demon summoners, but I warn you now, you've seen too much of it to get away from it. The energy of that ritual is sticking to your spirit like a stench, attracting spirits and weirdness and I'm surprised that you haven't begun seeing things sooner. If you'd actually drowned in that collapse you'd find town a _much_ more crowded place. Brushing up against death -opens things, like vision, that most people keep closed, lets you see things and touch things that just waft by everybody else. You, and your friends are going to need training, immediately. Bring them here tomorrow-"

Omi jumped to his feet, tomorrow! That was just not going to be possible, Ken and Yohji would be leaving for the island in the next few days! He bowed abruptly and apologetically to Genkai. "I'm sorry Master Genkai -that just won't be possible, and I've just noticed the time! I'm late for cram school!" he bowed again and bolted for the door trying to get out before she stopped him.

"Tsukiyono." damn, to late. "I will let you go this time, but you will be back, and soon, or I will hunt you down and make you regret it. You cannot escape this and you cannot escape me. Understood?"

Omi froze, then nodded, and left.

Genkai sighed. She hoped the boy could survive whatever made him so desperate to wait. After the tournament. Get everyone that far before she hunted down and dragged back any new students. She sighed and sipped her tea again. She was getting too old for this. And she still had phone calls to make.


	5. Chapter 5

Author's Notes:

I still hate author's notes. However, READ THIS ONE.

First, anyone getting notices probably saw that I uploaded Chapter Four again. In preparing this chapter I noticed that an important line didn't make it into the previously uploaded Four. It doesn't change anything, but something Genkai says in Five makes little sense without it.

Second before posting this I reviewed the guidelines and I do feel it still qualifies for it's current rating but we have the first on-screen death in this chapter, and the F-bomb does get dropped once, so be aware if you are watching the rating close. I don't think that either incident alone, or together, breaks the rating so I am leaving it. But be aware this is a 'fic about a tournament to the death, and just like not all the competitors survived in the source material and some of the characters were very, even murderously, unpleasant people, it will come up.

On a last note, more side characters from both series. If you don't recognize someone, and it bugs you, the wikipedia(.com) entry on either series can identify anyone you don't recognize.

I own neither YuYu Hakusho nor Weiss Kruez. Only the plot, narrative, and the occasional, (brief), OC are mine.

Connections

Chapter Five

Yanagaizawa Mitsunari stepped out of the limousine parked at the back of the converted warehouse. Of course he didn't _look_ like Yanagaizawa Mitsunari, he looked, sounded, dressed, walked, smelled and smoked like someone completely different. Tonight he was Alessandro Volta-san, a one-night-only pseudonym devised by the Dark Tournament's security for the very high powered criminal he'd copied to infiltrate this fight night for Genkai. He was glad that the security for this Dark Tournament was this paranoid -he really didn't need to be arrested on any of the warrants attached to the face he was wearing. Aliases were part of that impressive security. Mitsunari ruthlessly suppressed the urge to make "vroom vroom" noises. His "body guards", "Shadow 4Runner" and "Celica" fell into position on either side of him. Celica leaned over and whispered where only Alessandro and Shadow could hear, "Never say die". Alessandro nodded as he felt the tingle of territory from his friend's fetish in his pocket. The rules had been set, they were ready to go.

Mitsunari lit a cigarette with Alessandro's personal technique and waited for his guide to come and lead them inside. Almost immediately Sakashita, pressed, starched, and oiled to the ultimate, a "close personal friend" of Volta-san and the source of their invitation, appeared. If Mitsunari hadn't known better he would have sworn that the man was an adept and teleportation was his territory ability. Of course not every adept worked through territory so he very well could be. Time to say something; Mitsunari still didn't like this part, he didn't mind copying a target to know what the target knew, but when he copied someone he copied everything. As long as he just went looking through the copied memories for information it was almost like being a computer logged into another across a network: this was himself and that collection of information over there was the copy. The creepy part came when he actively used a copied identity. It really didn't work if he tried to pull information about what the person would say. It was too awkward and hesitant to decide to greet the copied person's friend and then go look through the copied memories for the way that person would greet a friend. Even at the speed of thought and after extensive practice it could take several seconds to find the right action that way. The only way to make the mimic perfect was to let the copy drive. Mitsunari would sink his own identity into the back ground and _almost_ think he was the copy, letting it do the talking, the seeing, the feeling, and only exert his own will when the copy was about to do something he didn't want it to do. A great deal of his training with Genkai had actually focused on knowing himself, telling his will from copied will. He _hated _ using his mimic power this way, he was always afraid that this time, may be, he would get stuck.

Mitsunari opened his mouth and Volta-san said, "Sakashita my friend, I hope your little project is more impressive inside! I'm not having fun yet!"

Sakashita bowed in a perfectly business-like fashion that still managed to be at once oily, condescending, and obsequious. "Please follow me Volta-san, this wretched exterior is but the oyster that hides the pearl within." He bowed again and turned leading the three of them forward. As the three of them followed Sakashita into the warehouse they passed through a very convincing dusty warehouse office, the faint strains of music wafting through the open "secret door", (something Mitsunari thought was just to enhance the sense of the forbidden), and into the coat room of any high class club. Sakashita invited Volta-san to leave the jacket of his tuxedo and Alessandro declined saying he looked sexier with it on. Sakashita didn't make the same offer to 4Runner or Celica.

When the girl at the counter winsomely offered him a tray of illegal drugs, (her eyes making an additional personal offer), that Sakashita assured him was on the house, (as was the extra offer), Mitsunari let Volta-san leer appreciatively at her breasts in their transparent blouse, tip the cocaine she offered onto her cleavage and use the golden pipe she'd offered to snort it off. She giggled. Mitsunari, privately, gagged. He was relieved to feel Asato's fetish tingle in his other pocket as Asato's shadow control ability, tied to the tiny doll in his pocket and the shadow of his right little finger safe back a Genkai's temple, blocked his body from absorbing anything but air. He'd have to rinse his nose out thoroughly later, and wait a day or so before he got his finger-shadow back, but it was better than having to deal with whatever Volta-san would snort up it in here. He was just grateful for the fact that the three of them had never stopped training with Genkai. Because of that training they'd learned to tie their territories to fetishes and move them around... something that had just saved his ass.

Snorting the cocaine made Sakashita smile, almost as if Mitsunari accepting the drugs in such a Volta-san-ish fashion had passed some sort of test. And wasn't that a bad possibility, Mitsunari thought to himself. That Sakashita could have anticipated any kind of impostor whose appearance was as complete as Mistunari's disguise was... scary. Of course this whole production was supposed to be the demonic Dark Tournament reborn and _a lot_ of demons were shape shifters. Fortunately Mitsunari's talent went well beyond simple shape-shifting.

Sakashita led them through a last velvet curtain and into upper level of an arena. The Tournament organizers had emptied the factory's main floor and trucked in pre-assembled bleachers full of padded seats, set them up in an oval, and expanded on the catwalk behind the top row some three or four dozen meters to hold several roulette wheels and betting stations for the fights. In a display of almost vulgar theatrics the ring from _Bloodsport_, (A frankly garish sign in five languages promised that it was the actual ring used in the Kumite), had been dropped in the center of the oval. At one end of the oval they had divided the seats into VIP boxes, with private service, drink or drugs or sex on demand and ring side views, (shielded by bullet proof glass), of the fights. All sight of scaffolding, support, cement, dust, dirt, or grime had been covered by velvet hangings and, the three realized as they stepped through the door and felt the tingle of territory, some adept's talent. The place looked suddenly like some ancient marble and lacquer temple and the air suddenly tasted _other-worldly_ to their adept's senses, exactly the same flavor that the air had had when Sensui had opened his gate to the demon world. For once Mitsunari was glad the copy was driving; it kept spiritually blind Volta-san's look of greedy anticipation on his face and his own look of grim shock off it. As bodyguards, 4Runner and Celica already wore grim looks but Mitsunari was painfully aware how close he'd just come to giving the game away. This was already worse than they had expected. For all intents and purposes, while that territory was running, arena was both in Tokyo and in the Makai.

Sakashita led them to, he assured them, the best box in the house. He made sure that they were supplied with the best food, drink, and drugs, a personal bookie for the fights, and a mostly naked personal "masseuse" for Volta-san. Then while the bookie was offering glossy photos and extensive backgrounds on the fighters for tonight's three fight card, Sakashita bowed himself away with an apology about seeing to his other guests and promised to return later in the evening to "hang" with his good friend Volta-san.

Five minutes later the bookie left with Volta-san's (huge) bet on the fighter opposite the one Genkai had told them to watch, (Mitsunari wanted to waste vast sums of Volta-san's money and any fighter Genkai thought might make it to the Dark Tournament could probably kick serious ass). The lights went down, a spot lit the center of the ring and a round doughy bald bug of a man in a white Nehru jacket and tiny round glasses stepped into the spot and began, "Ladies and Gentlemen, welcome to the last round of qualifying matches for the Tournament!" He paused for an inebriated but enthusiastic round of cheers. "the winners," he leaned forward a bit and gave the crowd a conspiratorial wink, "or at least the _survivors_ will be immediately whisked away to hang-neck island for the opening rounds of the tournament! Tonight you see champions in the making!"

Mitsunari leaned over to Yuu and asked "what does he mean, "champion**S** in the making?", I thought these fights were single elimination?" Yuu nodded and whispered back, "but the tournament itself has always been a team event, presumably they will require qualifying fighters to form teams...". Mitsunari nodded and Volta-san sat back in the chair returning his attention to the ring just as the first fighter came in from the side. Apparently the announcer had already identified the fighters and Mitsunari had missed it. Mitsunari looked at the young man in the ring and thought "cement brick". He was on the short side -but not really, had brown hair just a shade or two up from black, and this close to the ring he could see that the eyes matched the hair. Having attended (and participated) in more than one back-alley bare knuckles fight in his life Mitsunari was surprised at how _ordinary _this fighter looked. Most fighters were attention seekers on some level or other, but this young man you would pass in the street without another glance. His opponent, however, was an exact match to the type Mitsunari expected, with bright blue _tall_ brush cut hair, bulging obvious muscles, and leather pants, he looked like he was trying to be a video game character.

Then the referee, (such as there was), motioned the two fighters into the center of the ring and gave his fight instructions, (such as they were). The fighters dropped into opening stances and Mitsunari changed his mind. As soon as the fight started the first fighter, Mitsunari could only think of it as, "flipped a switch". Same brown eyes same soft brown hair, same stocky, non-nondescript build; but they weren't mild and ordinary anymore. The body tension was predatory, the motions purposeful and efficient, and the face was a smooth steel mask. The last time he'd seen that kind of look he'd been helping to chase down a rogue KGB assassin. This wasn't going to be a long fight. Brown eyes was going to end it a quickly as possible -even if it meant killing his opponent. He grabbed for Asato's arm and dragged him close to hiss in his ear, "Did you catch their names?" His friend gave him a startled look and answered, "yeah the brunet is Hidaka -"

With a crash and a shriek from the "massuse" Volta-San was wearing, Blue-hair bounced off the bullet-proof Plexiglas in front of their booth and dropped to the canvas; unmoving. It hadn't been a good landing. The newly-identified Hidaka stalked toward his opponent, and coincidently them, like some big cat approaching stunned prey. What Mitsunari found scariest was the faint pink sparkle around the fighter's eyes.

Blue hair was dragging himself up against the wall of their box, hiding his other hand from his enemy, though Mitsunari could see it just fine. Blue-hair's hand was glowing, with a sickly black light that occasionally flared gray and red at the edges. Just as Hidaka reached him Blue-hair uncoiled with an open hand slap, adept fast, for Hidaka's face. Hidaka dodged it, but not _quite _fast enough to get his shoulder clear of the gray laced fingers as Blue-hair swept his hand back. Those fingers sank into Hidaka's shoulder like claws and drove the man to one knee in a convulsion of agony. Mitsunari was close enough to see every muscle on the brunets torso stand out in stark relief and the color somehow drain from his skin toward Blue-hair's black hand. The cold mask slipped and naked fury swept over Hidaka's face, and Mitsunari heard him growl, "Not again. No fucking super-powers again!" With that Hidaka brought his right fist up from the floor and hit Blue-hair under the ribs so hard that he not only lifted the man at least a half a meter from the floor but Mitsunari actually saw the rib cage deform around the blow as everything inside was crushed against the ribs and back. The body slid a bit against the glass and dropped to the floor, giving Mitsunari a clear look at Hidaka as he carefully rose to his feet, and a clear view as a not-quite-opaque, sparkling pink mist rose from Blue-hair's body and dove into Hidaka, knocking him back to his knees.

Mitsunari's breath caught in his throat and he abruptly realized he'd pressed himself against the back of the box without any memory of moving. That pink whatever it was, his spirit sense felt scraped with steel wool. That mist was _power._ Demonic, powerful and _evil_, what in _Hell_ were those tournament people _doing _here! Inside the ring he could still see Hidaka shuddering, helpless, as the last of the mist settled itself in his flesh and he toppled, face first, to the mat.

Mitsunari flicked his wide eyes left and right and realized that the only people in the box, in fact in the whole place to retreat from the event in the ring were himself and his two friends. The screaming crowd hadn't, it seemed, seen anything out-of-the ordinary. Just the usual murder-for-entertainment's sake. Though they did seem to have attracted Sakashita's attention. Flanked by gunmen, who Mitsunari could see now weren't _men_, he was stalking toward the box with an out-of-place look of determination on his face.

Mitsunari caught his friend's eyes and said, "I think it's time to say-" they both joined in on the last word, "die." With an abrupt "pop" the three of them vanished, leaving little brown-paper cut-outs in the international symbol "man" shape and covered with intricate calligraphy behind. Cut-outs that flared into ash as a curious Sakashita reached for them.

Koenma sat back and put his short legs up on his desk, sipping on a leisurely cup of tea following an absolutely delightful strawberry rice cake. All was right with Koenma's afterworld -until George poked his head into the office with, "We found him sir!" Koenma was unexpectedly hurled from his dream of strawberry, (rice cake), fields and back to his paper buried little office with a stream of half-choked tea and a horrible mood. "What are you doing!" he screamed at his loin-clothed underling, "Can't you see I'm meditating on important matters here!" "But sir!," George whined, "that research Genkai needed for the Dark Tournament problem, the one you said to put top priority on. You said to find an investigator and we found one!"

Koenma sighed and sopped up the mess on his desk with a paper from near the bottom of the stack, by the time he got down to it it would be dry again anyway, and it's not like the tea could possibly make it any harder to read. "So you found me someone among the dead who can go to the living world and find out why the living world records don't match ours?"

"Yes Sir!" George enthused, waving a folder.

"Is that his file?" Koenma asked. George clutched the file in both hands and nodded emphatically. "Well then, give it here and send him in, it's a small file and he might as well wait in here as out there."

"Umm sir, there is one problem." Hedged George as he hurried forward and handed the file to Koenma.

"What possible problem could there be?" Complained Koenma, "We're offering him a chance to go back to life! At least for a while! If he's still hanging around here instead of going straight to Heaven, then he has _some_ reason not to move on."

George tapped his index fingers together fidgeting, "That's the problem, he has demands if he does this investigation for us... But he really would be the best investigator... . He was a senior investigator for a national secret vigilante organization, if anyone would be able to find out why the records don't match this would be the man."

"I see," mused Koenma looking at the file. "Joined the vigilantes looking for his stolen daughter, but didn't refuse to help others... burned to death saving his protégé...", Koenma shuddered, "and, it seems, stopping that 'Citizens for the Future' mess." He flipped a little further and then closed the file, setting it on his desk. "Send him in George. This looks like a man we can accommodate a request or two for. Whatever he feels he needs to finish, it probably won't be a bad thing." George bowed and hurried out.

The door opened almost immediately and admitted the spirit of a slight middle-aged man with black hair and dark eyes. As he approached Koenma's desk Koenma saw him tuck a paper airplane into his suit pocket. He bowed politely and seated himself in the chair in front of the desk that Koenma waved him to.

"So," began Koenma, "you think you can solve Genkai's little problem for me." The man nodded. "And for solving this problem you want a personal concession." The man nodded again. "What is that?"

The man smiled, "Lord Koenma," he began, "let me first ask you a question." Koenma nodded for him to continue, "Your work is the proper disposition of souls correct?" Koenma, of course nodded, "What criteria do you use? The person's criminal status in life or the intent of their actions?" Koenma huffed, "The intent of their soul of course! Which isn't precisely the same thing. A person who kills by accident through callow disregard for the safety of others, for example, might not be a murderer _by intent _but they are not blameless. Their soul's intent would show that disregard, or in the case of true accident the innocence of their intention. We have various means to determine this." He paused, "why do you ask?"

The man smiled, "Any answer to that question tells me whether or not you would approve my request, and that answer makes me confident. Lord Koenma, as you know I was an investigator for a vigilante organization. I chose to join them because my wife was murdered and my daughter vanished without trace. Since dying I _have _learned what happened to her but then. . ." He shook his head. The police never found any sign of her. I stepped outside the law when a weary police detective told me in confidence that she had probably been taken for a ring of highly placed pedophiles, and the only comfort he could offer me was that she would probably be treated well. The police could do nothing. My home had been made a bloody horror by the abduction, covered in blood, fiber, even tissue samples, but it had been professionally "cleaned" as far as clues went. The blood and tissue samples lead to dead bodies in the harbor, the fiber samples matched nothing. Though long experience told the investigators what had most likely happened -they had no evidence even to point them to a suspect.

Much later in my career as a vigilante I learned that precognition had most likely been used to remove every element of the scene that could have led to the criminal's capture -even by my organization. Any clue that might have revealed the guilty party was removed because the precognitive "saw" it would reveal his "client". At this point I had a choice, there was probably no reason to continue for me, there would be no realistic hope of my catching my wife's killer or finding my lost child. Even if those responsible were eventually brought to justice, it would not be for their crimes against _my_ loved ones, I had almost certainly failed them. But if I kept on with the organization I served, while I waited for that impossible chance of a clue to my daughter's abduction, there would be others I _could _ help. So I did. The only fitting memorial I could give my lost family was to protect others. Not every "cleaned" crime scene was as impossible as mine, and insufficient evidence to prosecute is not always insufficient evidence to clearly establish guilt. So I stayed."

The slight man sighed, "But Lord Koenma, if you are not a government you can't imprison murderers -so if you wish to stop their murders you must kill them." he shrugged, "and we had our assassins." He dared Koenma's eye, "I swear to you we never sent our assassins after a killer that was not slaughtering innocents or could be stopped by any other means." He held the God's gaze a moment to bare the truth of his words, then dropped his eyes, wiping the sweat from his face with shaking hands. "My death left a very confused young man, who was one of our best agents -drifting. He had come to think that continuing with the organization would detract from his personal responsibility, and he was perilously close to murder for vengeance sake alone. I died saving his life, but I don't know if I saved his sanity. He is part of a team, they are all the best we have-." He raised his eyes to Koenma's face again, pleading, "he is, his whole team is, the very best we have Lord Koenma. So many people's happiness rests on their shoulders, and they are so young, and most of the organization has been killed. They have no one to watch over them. I don't even need to... ." He sighed, "Whatever restrictions you would like to place Lord Koenma, I just need to do something for him, for them." He fell silent.

Koenma looked at the man a long time, pondering possibilities, and nodded. "Very well. What I want from you is to, in a way, continue as you began. Only this time _for _the legal authority: Me, instead of around it. If you can do that then I believe some accommodation can be made." The man nodded his assent solemnly. "Good. I believe that your working for me is fate, all things considered. George explained the dark tournament and the Reikai Tantei when he recruited you, correct?" Again that solemn nod. "Well then. The Tantei selected two competitors to follow but when our Living World investigators went to find out their backgrounds the records said they were dead, not that uncommon for the criminal underworld. However, when we checked the lists here they are not written on the rolls of the deceased. So I need you to find out who these two men are." He dropped two labeled photographs on the desk.

As he picked up the pictures of Kudo Yohji and Hidaka Ken, Botan began to laugh.

It never ceased to baffle Yuusuke how far Genkai's connections seemed to extend. He'd always thought that the immense flat space behind Genkai's temple was just a field for making him walk around on his index fingers or some other equally stupid exercise. It seemed that it was also for parking Genkai's Helicopter. He hadn't been at all surprised to find a helicopter landing on it, but when the pilot walked over to Genkai and turned over the keys with a polite bow and "ma'am", you could have floored him with a feather. Her only response to his reaction was to ask what he did he think she would have done with all her "retired time"? Once the helicopter arrived they all scrambled to assemble their gear and meet back in the main hall to leave.

Yuusuke was just walking into the main hall with his battered duffel over the shoulder of his black leather duster when Genkai's "intruder" alarm went off. Genkai's alarm was a little more sophisticated than your average alarm and could usually tell whether her wards were being breached by a hostile force or, as in this case, a desperate friendly one. They got to Genkai's "safe room" in time to see the last of the spell painted on the floor, which let Kaito's territory reach across miles, wisp away and the three adepts appear in a heap where it had been. Yuusuke, Kurama and Kuwabara helped the three to their feet and Mitsunari's gaze locked on Genkai. "I see everybody is here, let me tell you everything we saw. He shifted his gaze around the fighters. This could change everything.

"Fine." Genkai said "After dragging the three of you so far by your souls, Kaito has to be exhausted". Indeed Kaito hung rather limply between Kurama and Kuwabara. "Lets move this to the kitchen and get the three of you fed. Explain while we walk." By the time the whole troop of them had arrived at the kitchen Mitsunari had told the Tantei about the presence of territory in the enemy camp, the unexplained "pink" power and the fact that their target fighter was still in the running.

"That, at least, is good to hear." Said Kurama as he and Kuwabara eased Kaito onto one of the benches against the wall of the professional modern kitchen that Genkai had somehow elbowed into her very traditional temple. He continued, "Whatever other curves this case throws at us, as long as they stay on Earth we can at least find the Tournament. "I'm not sure that's going to be enough," said Yuusuke, "I was never sure where exactly Hang Neck Island was to begin with. Didn't Sakyo destroy it?"

Genkai shrugged "Whatever. Though if this adept's territory works in the way it sounds like it does, they could simply reproduce it and it wouldn't really matter. I'm more concerned about how this relates to something else I've recently learned. I begin to wonder if profit is the only motive in reviving in the Dark Tournament. Let me tell you of a young visitor I recently had.

Yohji ducked into a cabin doorway and thought wall-thoughts until Ken's manager and his hanger-ons turned into another passage. He dropped into a crawl for the four or so steps needed to get him under the camera at the intersection and slipped into Ken's cabin. Aya had caught him up on deck and all but forced him to come sit with Ken while Aya went to the ship's doctor to draw supplies for Ken's "injuries". Yohji had been a little pissed at the time -the party the tournament had supplied had been complete with a lot of _very_ pretty ladies, and Yohji never like to miss a pretty lady, but Ken. . .. Yohji didn't know, looking at him, how he'd held it together long enough to run off his manager. Ken was curled in the furthest corner of the bunk in the smallest, tightest, ball he could make, shivering. And, Yohji could only tell because he's seen him after Kase, crying into the hands that covered his face.

"Shit Ken," Yohji said, crossing the room and sitting on the bed. He reached out and dragged the shuddering Ken-ball into his arms. At first touch Ken uncurled with a little, desperate cry and started attacking, trying to force Yohji away from his corner while trying to dig himself deeper into it. Yohji blocked a couple of uncharacteristically inept swipes and caught Ken's arms. "Ken!" he yelled. Ken abruptly went limp on Yohji, gasping for air. "I'm sorry Yohji. Oh, God, any God, I'm sorry."

Yohji was beginning to worry so he gathered Ken against him, wrapped him in his arms, tucked his friend's head under his chin and leaned them both back against the bulkhead. "Ken, what's wrong?"

Ken shook his head against Yohji, and stifled a laugh before it could become a hysterical giggle. "What isn't wrong?" They just sat and concentrated on breathing for a couple of moments. "Yohji, did you." He stopped and started again. "Was there anything "off" about your fight tonight?"

Yohji thought very carefully about that before he answered. Truth was the whole thing had been. . . weird. From the moment he'd walked out of the truck the fighters had been delivered in, (he'd been stifling a "moo" the whole trip), and stepped into the arena his "soldier sense" had been screaming at him, but not telling him to find cover. Telling him something he didn't understand. It made him pissed off and he repressed the urge to snap back at Ken. "Yeah maybe."

Ken took a deep breath, "OK, yeah, well me too. You felt, well, angrier a little and a whole lot more violent?" Yohji thought about that and nodded against the top of Ken's head. "Yeah," Ken said, "me too. So much that-". The shuddering had calmed once he'd begun to speak and he leaned back to look at Yohji, who let him slide away just a little. "Yohji, I killed my opponent-" Yohji interrupted with a shrug, "It's an illegal fighting tournament, we all knew it could happen-". "But Yohji, it's actually not the killing, it's -shit- everything about it! I was... pleased, hell I was damned _delighted _when I killed him. The scary part about _that_ is it wasn't an unfamiliar feeling. But that's not all of it. The reason I lost control enough to actually kill him -Yohji, as a fighter the guy really really wasn't good enough to force me to kill him, but he had _powers._" Yohji interrupted with his own "Damn."

Ken nodded. "I felt like one of the Esset Elders had a hold of me again, only this was tearing along my nerves _inside_ instead of just throwing me around, and I just lost control for a few seconds. Complete whiteout. I didn't remember where I was, what I was doing, even-." He stopped and whispered, "even who I was." Ken swallowed and continued. "It was all just rage and making him stop." He stared into space for a bit, and Yohji let him. At least the shaking had gone. "Then that same damn pink mist we saw in the warehouse floated from the guy's body and -_invaded _me." He looked directly at Yohji for the first time since Yohji'd entered the room. "Did you see it this time?" Reluctantly Yohji nodded, hadn't that just been a trip. Off the side, in one of the fighter's ring entrances surrounded by a bunch of competitors, so much further away from the fight than he'd been at the warehouse, he'd seen the stuff materialize on the downed man. It made him wonder how the hell he'd missed the stuff before. It had been like watching a transparent, rhinestoned, pink curtain lift off the fighter and wrap around his friend. "Its still there Yohji," Ken finished, "It's trying to change _things_..."

The door creaked, and Aya slipped in, his arm full of supplies. He dragged the night table over to the two on the bunk and set his supplies down on it, and pulled up a chair for himself. "They gave me everything I could possibly need," He caught his team mate's eyes, "even things I didn't ask for. And no one seemed at all surprised that Ken was laid up after _winning_." He shifted his glance to Ken. "They expected your reaction."

"I wonder, " Ken replied. "Does that mean they're _expecting_ whatever changes this pink crap is trying to make in me? Is this what made those monsters on the dock? What will they do when it doesn't? Because _damned_ if I'm going to let it change _anything._"

Aya shrugged, "I wouldn't be surprised if it was what made those monsters. They were both basically humanoid, just with additions. Additions that we know even a mad man like Masafumi could manage. Considering those monsters both bled that energy, it would make sense. As for what they will do, I don't think that this energy is that precise... . The fighter in the ring had powers but no distortions. Considering the size of our other problems, I wouldn't worry about it." He paused for a second in thought. "Unless you start feeling like it's winning?"

Ken shook his head, "I can already feel it backing off," his expression soured, "but I'm afraid it's not going away." He shivered and ran his arms up and down his arms to warm them. "And about that. Guys, since the ring I've been able to "feel" the stuff. My "manager" has something _like_ it. Half a dozen fighters I passed on my way here had it, and guys," he paused, reluctant to finish, then, "you both do too."


	6. Chapter 6

Author's Notes:

For a person who hates author's notes,I sure write a lot of them. If you are interested in helping me get these chapters out faster, please read the longer note at the end of this installment. If you're just here for the story please ignore it.

I own neither YuYu Hakusho nor Weiss Kruez. Only the plot, narrative, and the occasional, (brief), OC are mine.

Connections

Chapter Six

Omi dragged himself over the railing and onto the ship next to the hatch to below decks. He used the moment it took the vial of acid from one of his quarrels to eat away the lock to look around for watchers. Or at least he tried to. There was simply nothing for him to see or hear or. . . well the less thought about other ways to check the better. Omi, like all Weiss had a very well developed "soldier's sense" and since the beginning of this increasingly weird case he'd found himself relying on it more and more. He'd been out of contact with his team for hours now and he hated to admit it to himself but he was really beginning to worry. If he was honest he was more-than-a-little missing them. Not that he wouldn't miss them as friends whatever the circumstance, but he was supposed to be an assassin. A sniper. His part on the team was to be outside, providing cover or taking the target while the rest guarded his position. This sense of, well, -vulnerability without them. . .? He shook his head at himself, levered up the hatch, and slipped inside. There was something so _off_ with this whole situation that he found himself grasping for every straw of information no matter how absurd. And _all_ his information, Omi paused to let an automatic camera switch away from his path before he eased down the hall, said chasing, catching, and infiltrating this ship had been too easy. So he was really missing his reliable backup.

He'd arrived at the harbor, a harbor full of ships of all sizes and purposes, and known that this was the right one. When he'd put his sensor on its berth it had only been one of a dozen possible ships, but as soon as he saw it he knew it was the one that his team was aboard. Chasing it had been a simple matter of hitting a nearby marina, stealing a very convenient, very fast speedboat and following the ship, (lucky break number one). His stolen speedboat was hardly inconspicuous, but no-one aboard had paid it the slightest attention, (lucky break number two), so Omi decided to seize the chance and try to slip aboard. He'd disabled two cameras as he passed on his way to the top deck, and had been forced to conclude that the ship security must have enough cameras to watch that two exterior cameras going out didn't alarm them,(lucky break number three). But here he was, below decks, in the cabins, and, he somehow knew, less than a dozen meters from his team and still there had been nothing. Omi _knew_ he was good -but this good just wasn't possible. He should have had to at least dodge people in the halls. He had an overwhelming urgency to reach his team before his luck ran out and broke _him_ back. Omi set his hand on the door his team was behind. Abruptly something snapped silently in the back of his head, the world went white and his unconscious body dropped limply to the hallway floor.

An abrupt clatter of footsteps stopped next to Omi's still form. A small group composed of an assistant ship's purser, two black suited security and a woman in kimono of bright red silk stopped next to the unconscious boy. A delicate lady's foot in tabi and wooden sandals reached out and flipped Omi face up. A thin, exotically made-up face, one side white as snow the other a very realistic, very accurate black widow's web on a red background that matched the kimono, looked down on him. "Purser," the woman demanded, and the inherently nervous fellow stepped forward and bowed, "who's cabin is this?" The purser, who didn't even need to consult the tablet PC he carried to answer, having memorized all the fighters and their cabins, responded, "Hidaka, milady." The woman let out a rather indelicate snort and murmured to herself, "All the rats together then." She gave the unconscious Omi a long appraisal, "I should drop you overboard like the vermin you are, but your blood deserves better." She pointed at Omi with her closed fan and caught the eye of the lead security man, "I want some profit -or at least good sport out of this; see to it." She gestured at the door, "Purser if you will."

She flicked her fan open and held it before her as the purser knocked. Shortly after the knock, Ken opened the door. The purser started to open his mouth but shut it and scuttled aside when the senior security man tapped him on the shoulder. "Fighter Hidaka" the security man began in a grinding bedrock growl. He continued when Ken nodded. "This intruder was attempting to enter your room. Can you explain this?"

Ken shrugged, reflexes honed by years of practice lying to the flower shop paparazzi automatically covering for him while he groped for an answer. What the hell was Omi doing here? What the hell could _he_ do? If he didn't do anything they'd probably shoot Omi and toss him overboard -if he did do anything, they'd probably shoot them _all_ and toss them overboard, but he couldn't just cut Omi loose. Stall, it was the only thing he had left. He shifted to look down at Omi's still form considering. Coincidently blocking the view into the cabin. They would know that Aya was here, but maybe not Yohji, if Yohji could come up with something... . "I'm sorry, I have no idea what that boy was doing outside my cabin. Maybe looking for a place to hide? If he's a stow-away?" Absolutely true. Always the best way to lie.

The security guy let the conversation hang there, the pause stretching painfully long, waiting for Ken to crack and say something more. Ken, though, had been leaned on by better intimidators than a dozen of this security guy. Ken was only impulsive before or after a fight.

Finally the woman tapped the man on his shoulder and gestured him to lean over so she could whisper in his ear. She flicked the fan open to cover their conversation. Eventually he nodded and leaned away, turning back to Ken. "Fighter Hidaka, you have the privilege today to meet one of the Organizers of this tournament," he turned and bowed to the woman in red, "and she makes you an offer. As you know, while qualifiers for the tournament are single elimination -the Tournament itself is a team event. She will allow the re-classification of your trainer as a fighter, and will permit you to form a team with him, fighter Kudo, who is now in your room, and this intruder. This intruder has proven very resourceful, he might be of some small value in the ring. Or we will shoot him and dump his body overboard."

Ken glanced to his right and left, checking to see if Yohji or Aya had anything, and was unsurprised at the faint head shake from each telling him they didn't. All the weapons, automatics at that, were on the other side at the moment and though there were sometimes ways around that, those ways all required the ability to move and some distance from the enemy -none of which they had in these cramped quarters. Weiss would take one or two with them but anything they tried here would just end up with them all dead real quick. Talk about your deals you can't refuse. Ken glared at the ever-so-slightly smug security man and answered, "How could I turn down an Organizer's deal? We'll take him." The the man twitched his hand and the other security guy and the purser picked Omi up and all but threw him to Aya.

The group formed up around the woman again. As they turned to walk back up the hall Ken heard a harsh whisper, which he wasn't sure was meant for his ears, from behind the fan. "Good," she hissed, "the complete set."

Over the ocean, out of sight of land, Hiei's Jagan had lost track of Hidaka and Genkai had flown the 'copter in a circle for better than an hour before he'd caught it again. Hiei swore, and Yuusuke believed him, that the only thing in the Ninjenkai that could make him lose the trace was if his target had _left_ the Ninjenkai. Of course as that trace had _come back_, Hiei was at a loss to tell them precisely what had happened. In any case, it had been enough to bring them to the tournament in the end. In a way, Yuusuke felt, it didn't matter whether this was the original location of the tournament or not. The air tasted the same, that same tainted atmosphere Yuusuke had hated before. The same stadium, (roofed), The same high-rise hotel and private, covered, entry for high-roller human patrons. The same betting and ticket windows. And finally, making up the 'regular' crowd, the demons that had been missing from this entire mess so far. In a rare spurt of mischief Genkai buzzed the crowd to give the demons with really good eyesight a look at just who was in the chopper. And that gave Yuusuke good enough look that he thought that most in the crowd were the same too. Genkai brought the helicopter down to land in the arena; right through the barrier over the stadium, (a coordinated flare of the Tantei's combined Rei- and You-Ki blew a soccer-pitch sized hole in the top of the barrier _and_ the stadium roof -Kuwabara noted in passing that putting a roof on the Dark Tournament was just stupid), past the defense missiles, (Genkai had simply out maneuvered a half-dozen and the remaining two or three dozen had fallen either to one of Kurama's explosive-spitting plants or Yuusuke's Rei-gun), and through what was left of the roof to land in the billows of smoke from the rubble fallen to the main ring.

Team Urameshi stepped into the smoke and took a moment to arrange themselves while the stadium security boiled out of the field level entries and a number of the Nigre Decuria leadership, several of whom clearly matched the briefing photos, came down to the field in a more dignified but urgent pace. Kuwabara threw open the sliding door of the helicopter and the five of them stepped out and strode toward the oncoming forces.

Whoever was arranging the security knew what they were doing. They took advantage of the higher ground and multiple angles available to them to cover the Tantei with an inescapable potential crossfire. Humans (presumably), in Kevlar body armor crouched in position behind, (obviously) demons of all shapes, sizes, and weaponry. All of it, human and demon, poised to obliterate the Tantei. The Nigre Decuria arranged themselves behind their security and donned their best sneers -radiating a solid wall of superiority, Masters Of All They Survey.

Then a flippant breeze blew the smoke away from the Tantei, curling it sinister and black around their knees. Team Urameshi flanked their leader, Kuwabara and Hiei on Yuusuke's left -Genkai and Kurama on his right.

Kuwabara, being as he was the tallest was the first visible. As was his habit, Kuwabara had dressed in white. But gone was the over-enthusiastic headband and motto painted trench coat. Instead his long coat was a pristine white leather. He wore it over a simple white sleeveless tee, white linen trousers, black boots to the knee, and black gloves. While Kuwabara could chose to be as absurd and ostentatious as ever, he no longer _needed_ to. Why bother to call attention to himself when he had a well earned reputation do do it for him?

If Kuwabara had banked his flamboyance, Hiei had decided to indulge. He wore a sleeveless iridescent ruby tunic and trousers with matching boots. The Jagan was no longer confined behind simple bandage. Instead Hiei wore an extravagantly carved headband of adamant and red jade that both hid the Jagan and flaunted his status as Mukuro's heir. And while he still kept his Jagan warded, the dark dragon was unbound and openly displayed on his arm, where it slowly twisted in sleepy anticipation.

Kurama wore _the_ corporate power suit. The dove gray silk Armani was calculated to flaunt power, while being just populist enough to suggest he'd dressed down to match his audience. His hair was an immaculate river of red, left loose to float in sybaritic indulgence to his knees. While the others clearly wore clothes they could, however fine, fight in, Kurama had finished off his ensemble with very shiny, impractical, custom dress shoes and a supermodel pose. His only obvious extravagance was the signet ring carved from a single emerald that he wore on the hand he'd not tucked casually into a pocket and the hand-embroidered silver fox on his black silk tie.

Genkai, privately amused at the preening of the boys, and realizing her height and their over protective natures would ensure she was at the back of the group, had kept it simple. She made her statement by wearing a duplicate of her old demon-fighting outfit. Only her hair, left loose, and the ribbon she wore on one bicep in memory of her lost partner, were different.

In front of them all stood Yuusuke. He left no question for the alert observer what they were here for. He wore black boots, black pants, black dress shirt and over it all an open, _precisely_ gunmetal-gray, long, overcoat. He had both hands in his pockets, his hair combed into a flat top, and triangular, black, opaque, face-hugging, slick, gleaming, sunglasses.

The team, as a whole wore their matching reputations, buffed to a high attitude gloss and let their team _presence_ sublimate into the confrontation's atmosphere like chilled poison.

Having given the assembled watchers an opportunity to identify them all, if they could, Team Urameshi stepped forward together; kicking the lingering smoke and debris casually away as they walked. They strolled across the ring, across the stadium grounds, while the demons readied weapons, as one gunman after another raised his machine gun, into the teeth of security's carefully created killing ground. Yuusuke, with perfect instinct, stopped them exactly one step before the security commander ordered 'fire'.

"We're here." Yuusuke announced.

The old man in glasses and brown Kimono stepped forward and asked, "Why should we care?"

Yuusuke smiled, with entirely too many teeth, "You claim this is the Dark Tournament. We are the Dark Tournament Champions. You cannot have the Dark Tournament without us. You didn't even send an invitation. I think I'm insulted." He asked the rest of his team, "aren't you guys insulted?" In answer Kuwabara thunderously cracked his knuckles, Hiei growled and stroked his dragon, Genkai simply folded her arms, Kurama casually stroked a lock of hair and the security forces, as one, shuffled an involuntary half step back.

The old man almost hid his wince at the intimidation of his small army by four undersized and unarmed people and said, "I repeat, why should we care?"

Yuusuke smirked. "Because either _my_ team can make an appearance at the start of the tournament and fight the championship bout while you provide all the requisite luxury, _proving_ that this is the real Dark Tournament or we can break up your opening ceremonies and announce you're closed and the tournament is off -and going to stay off." His eyes narrowed, "And if you're too stupid and ignorant to realize we can do it, no matter _what_ you have that you think can stop us, then ask one of your demon lackeys from the Makai whether or not we can."

The old man just stared a Yuusuke for a moment, grinding his teeth. Finally he motioned forward a figure from the rear of the assembled Decuria. The Tantei observed this with interest, most of the present Nigre Decuria had been shown in their briefing, but not this one. He, or perhaps she, it was impossible to tell the figure's sex, was all but concealed. He wore a leaf-green cloak that covered him from the shoulder to the ground with a fitted collar that entirely hid his throat. On his head he wore a helmet with neck piece that covered sides and back of his head and neck. His face was hidden by a veil of fine, silvery chain mail. The only piece that might be visible was the long, aqua tail of hair that fell from top of the helmet, which might or might not be his own. The old man leaned toward the cloaked figure and spoke softly enough that Yuusuke couldn't understand him. More disturbing was the fact that he couldn't hear the reply at all. Yuusuke wondered if the demon had used telepathy. Whatever the case the old man straightened from his brief conversation and resumed his sneer. "Very well. We have decided you make a good case." He motioned a couple of female flunkies forward. The two were both dressed in business suits with very high heels, deep cleavage, and short skirts. These two will escort you to the best VIP suite," he leered suggestively, "and see to your every need. You will be called well in time for your appearances." He shifted to turn to go.

"Just a moment," interrupted Kurama, "You have not addressed what happens when we win."

The old man looked back at Team Urameshi, "Your Hostesses will provide you with complete participant rules and information packets. But you won't be needing them." He turned on his heel and strode hurriedly away, the rest of the crowd scrambling to keep pace. The cloaked figure trailed sedately in the rear.

Author's Note:

I need a second beta. My current beta is an "in person" beta and while perfectly capable of catching me on grammar errors and the like, I've apparently bounced too many pieces of the plot off their head and now they're no better than I am at catching the disconnects if I make a last minute change that moves or leaves something out. We both know where this is going (more or less), and this seems to be keeping us from noticing un-closed plot holes etcetera. This has already required one complete chapter re-write and one re-upload. So I hope someone who has read the story to date will be willing to beta to prevent my having to re-write and re-upload in future. If you are interested, please PM or email me.


	7. Chapter 7

I own neither YuYu Hakusho nor Weiss Kruez. Only the plot, narrative, and the occasional, (brief), OC are mine. Not for profit.

Author's Note: This is the first chapter with the new beta. I want to thank both the beta and the reader who suggested the beta. You know who you are.

Connections

Chapter Seven

As Aya placed Omi on the bed, the boy began moaning and slowly sat up. "Guys?" He asked in a confused voice.

"Don't worry about it, Omi," answered Yohji. "It wasn't how we talked about it, but it looks like we've got the whole team into the tournament."

"Hunh?" puzzled Omi.

Aya brooded where he leaned against the wall, arms crossed. He finally answered, "They caught you, Omi."

Omi winced. "I wish I could say I was surprised, but it felt way too easy to get on board. Any idea what they hit me with?" He looked up, meeting a round of head shakes and negative shrugs. He pulled his knees up and dropped his head on to them. "'Cause I've got to tell you guys. It's left me really bad off. I've got a few more minutes to talk about this, then I'm gonna crash for a while."

Ken finally answered, "I bet it was more of that freaky powers stuff, like the black energy the guy in the ring used on me."

"Yeah," said Yohji, "how are we going to deal with that? Not to mention this pink shit we've all caught like the flu."

"Pink sh-stuff?" interrupted Omi.

Ken nodded grimly. "In the ring with the last guy I fought. It looked and _felt_ exactly the same as that time in the warehouse. A little different, l guess, like rice balls made by different people. Different stuff included, different flavors maybe, but all rice in the end." He nodded again. "Yeah, it's all the same stuff."

Omi struggled into a sitting position, leaning against the wall. "Yohji, what do you mean, 'caught like the flu'?"

Yohji looked at Ken. "You're the one who's 'detecting', or whatever it is you're doing, this stuff. You explain."

"Well," Ken began. "That pink energy?" Omi nodded. "It. . . Well. . . I. . .." He sighed. "My last opponent had some, and it... infected me when I killed him." He stopped, waiting for Omi to chide him for over reacting.

Omi just sat there. Ken blinked. "You believe me? Just like that?"

Omi shrugged and said, "I haven't had a chance to brief you on what my investigations turned up. Yes, I believe you. Considering what I've learned, I'd be stupid not to. Now explain this flu reference of Yohji's."

Ken sat next to his friend on the bunk. "Well since I absorbed that last bit in the ring, I've been able to sense it. Like, a cross between smelling and hearing, only without a nose or ears."

Yohji rolled his eyes. "Really useful comparison, Ken".

Ken glared back. "There aren't any words for it, Yohji! It's the best I can do." He looked back at Omi. "Ever since the ring, I've been able to sense the stuff in other people. . ."

"Ken," Aya interrupted, "what about Omi?"

That brought the entire room to a halt for a handful of seconds. Ken focused a little closer on Omi, paying attention. "Yeah," he answered. "Sorry Omi." He shook his head, chocolate hair flipping a little with the force. "Omi's infected too. Almost as much as the rest of us, actually." He stopped abruptly, thinking, then continued, "Guys, thinking about it, now I realize that we have more of it than anybody I've noticed so far." He fell silent. The distant sounds of the ships' machinery and the faint creak of the hull in motion invaded the space between the Weiss.

"Well," Yohji finally broke the thick quiet. "That's a frightening statement if I've ever heard one. Anybody got a bright side here?"

Aya looked up from brooding at the floor. "If the energy is causing these powers, then perhaps we are better prepared against them than we thought?"

Ken snorted. "Yeah, maybe if we let it make the _changes_ it was trying to. Which is not happening."

Aya looked off into the distance. "Omi has it too, you say to a great degree, and he's not competed in the tournament." He looked at Ken. "And you somehow forced it to 'retreat' without completing the changes you felt it trying to make. Perhaps we've been exposed from some other source and developed some immunity?"

Omi scrubbed tired hands across burning eyes. "I think that's stretching a bit, Aya-kun. We really don't know enough. Our problem is supposed to be the mission. . .."

"We're not going to get far on that if this stuff turns us into monsters, Omi," Yohji interrupted.

"Some days I feel like a monster anyway," Ken said. Another silence fell.

This time Aya broke it. "No." He looked at Ken. "We are tainted. None of us is naive enough to think we belong anywhere but the darkness. But we are not monsters yet. Not until we kill for the joy of it. Not until we can't say no." He caught the eyes of each of Weiss in turn. "And I would ask each of you to kill me first."

Yohji opened his mouth to say something to lighten the mood, then thought of his regular nightmares and changed his mind. "Yeah, me too."

Omi looked between blond and redhead and worried about how to phrase this in his report to Kritiker. He didn't want to get either of his team mates into trouble, but a suicide pact?

Ken spoke up nodding, "Make that three for three." He looked at Omi. "I guess that makes you the fail-safe, Chibi."

Omi looked at his friends and then down at his hands in his lap. A pledge. Outside of loyalty to Kritiker. He knew what he should do. This kind of psychological break should be reported. He also knew what it would mean. Kritiker would break up Weiss. Re-assign them. Take them off the front lines. Put some other newer, inevitably cleaner, hands in their place. All in the name of operative health and organizational safety. And Kritiker would be right. By the rules of their odd, desperate, hidden existence they would be right. He lifted his face, to his friend's eyes, ready to agree to their plea, and then betray their confidence later in his report.

He opened his mouth, and couldn't do it. He dropped his head, closing his eyes. He couldn't do it. It was a stupid, dangerous thing they asked of him. He knew he should be the smart, careful one. He always was. But something that had always been unspoken was, in this impossible situation, obvious and inescapable. These weren't just team mates. These men each had somehow, without any of them ever intending it, claimed a piece of his soul. And each of them, in turn, wished to place their lives, not because they had to, but because they _wanted_ to, into his hands.

These were not companions of chance. These were his brothers, and he would never betray another brother. "No." He answered. "If it ever comes to that, we will, we all will, find a way to save you."

Ken laughed a little. "Then I guess I'll have to stay save-able." He grinned weakly around the group. "Aren't we supposed to be a team for this thing? I say," he put his fist out, "go, Team Shiro!"

Aya release one of his tiny smiles and came off the wall to place his hand on Ken's. "Forever White."

Yohji grinned wryly and added his hand and his pledge. "I will always be White."

Omi broke out his brightest smile. "When this is all over we'll buy a huge van and drive around the country selling flowers! It'll be great!" He set his smaller hand over the hands of his brothers.

Just managing to keep his pace short of a run, the aged spokesman for the Tournament Committee led the committee into their private lounge. He stilled the shaking in his hands by pulling the bottle of perfectly chilled Diva from the refrigerated jacket on the bar, dumping a glass-full into the first thing he put his hand on, and tossing it back with all the attention he'd give wine-by-the-gallon. By the second glass of vodka, the shaking had calmed to faint tremors. The old man was actually able to let go of it by the time an elegant, long fingered hand sheathed in translucent, green silk came around his arm and put the glass down on the polished Mpingo bar.

"Now then," said the soft, elegant, voice from behind the green veil, "that's enough of that. I realize that you've had a shock, but too much more of that, and you won't need to worry about surviving their displeasure, will you?" The sage-swathed figure poured exactly half a glass into the tumbler on the bar and gently folded the old man's hand around it, leading him to his personal wing-back chair and firmly depositing him into it. Meanwhile, the only woman in the group swept to the bar, her white painted face expressionless, and began dishing out vodka to the men with ruthless efficiency. The cloaked figure nodded to her with mute approval and waited until the whole committee was seated with their elegant tranquilizer.

He allowed them all a few sips before he began. "I realize that Team Urameshi is. . . intimidating, even for captains of industry. But you must not forget why you are here." The robed figure floated around the room toward the glass wall looking down on the meticulous, formal gardens. His mellifluous voice and encouraging words were as soothing as the vodka.

"I sought you out because you are men who know _power_. This world," he spread his arms wide in an elegant and all encompassing gesture as he stopped before the window, "reels drunkenly in the chaos of this modern era. Men do not know their place. There is no order in society. You gentlemen, you would restore the grace of order, but even with all the power you command, proper social organization is so _damaged_ by this era of _socialism_ and _democracy_ that, conquer the business world though you have, the frenetic animals continue to roam loose. You need power that the rabble cannot overwhelm, that the modern _populist_ governments cannot diffuse." He swept his hands dramatically overhead. Then he dropped them. Deliberately slumping slightly, he continued, "But I cannot give you that power without the ritual. And the ritual will never happen if you _run at every empty threat_."

One of the committee members snorted. "Those didn't sound or feel like empty threats, Majari! I was on the original committee. Those five destroyed the original tournament and damn near sunk the island!"

The green clad figure was suddenly next to the man, and a gloved hand turned his face up, his jaw clutched in a delicate, iron grip. "Ah, but they are empty, my dear man." Majari purred. "Despite their formidable reputations, they can't catch me even when I am right under their noses can they?" He released the man's face with a gentle pat on the head. "Just be patient a little longer, and you will have all the power I promised." He straighted and waved at the room in general. "It has been a trying day. Perhaps we should all disperse to the comfort of our individual suites, yes?"

Captains of industry or not, the committee recognized a dismissal when they received one, and this once they were happy to leave without argument. The room quickly emptied, almost. "You're still here?" Majari inquired of the lone woman.

She flicked the obvious comment away with a careless hand. "I don't shriek and run in the face of danger. You know that. It is one of the reasons you need me."

"You are so sure I need you, H-"

"No," she interrupted. "Do not speak that name, even here. It has no meaning until your promise to me is fulfilled. And even so much as the breath of it might get back to them, and we lose a valuable advantage."

Majari snorted. "I understand _your_ preoccupation with them, but _I_ see no reason to be so careful."

"Neither did I, once. And I told you what came of that. And you do need me: for untraceable money, to ride herd on your pack of sheep-in-wolves-clothing, and to keep you from making my dangerous mistake. It would be far safer to kill them now. They have an almost supernatural facility for landing on their feet, even from impossible falls."

"No!" The green robed Majari swept his hand out in a decisive gesture. "They have absorbed too much of the power we need. I will not risk its dissipation, and I will not have this argument with you again. I will restore your lover to you once my purpose is met, but that requires _all _the power. They die in the ring with everyone else."

The woman, snarling, shattered the flask of Diva in one hand. Brushing shards of bottle from her unmarked palm, she controlled her anger. "Very well then," she hissed. "If you refuse to take my warning seriously, then let me take some extra measures to eliminate them _in the ring._"

He turned to face her. "That, I might be willing to do." He held out his arm. "Come to dinner with me in my quarters and tell me your thoughts."

The woman barely hesitated a moment before taking that arm and together they swept from the room

The second hostess had just bowed and was almost out the door of their VIP accommodations when Genkai stopped her. She'd been reading the 'participant package,' which had been delivered by a breathless runner. "Wait," she growled. "The first fight is _now?_ Are your bosses expecting us to be in a fight right off the helicopter?"

The hapless hostess bowed to Genkai. "By no means, Lady-"

"That's '_Master_'," Yuusuke growled.

The hostess continued smoothly as if she'd never been interrupted, ". . .Master Genkai. As the Tournament Champions, Team Urameshi will not be required to compete until the final fight."

"So then, they're trying to cheat my boys out of their best chance to see _all_ the possible competition?" Genkai scowled. Then glanced at the rest of the team. "I think you'd better escort us to your best VIP box _right now_, and make sure we don't miss this fight."

The woman bowed again, and as if it had been her idea all along, gestured toward the door. "If you would care to accompany me I will guide you to the first fight of the tournament."

Docking had taken longer than expected. A purser had, with a dozen armed and armored security, come to Weiss' room and led them to the main hold to join the rest of the fighters. Weiss, of course, went quietly with them. It chafed a bit to let the smarmy little purser think they were afraid of his armed bullies, but Aya's contemptuous sniff had said all that needed saying. He left no doubt that Weiss went along with the escort because they were going that direction anyway.

The escort had all but shoved them through the door, into the hold. The hold was full of fighters. The ship had originally been built to move automobiles across the pacific. At least two thirds the original cargo space had been divided into VIP suites, luxury facilities, and the cell-like fighter accommodations. That left room for about a thousand cars in the hold.

The tournament fighters filled the space. Ken would guess at most a hundred people or so, but the combined aura of so many master combatants took up all the room inside. Pressing down with a crushing sense of _presence_ that made it hard to breathe. . ..

Quite unexpectedly, Ken felt something inside himself push back. It moved like the pink stuff, but this felt only of himself, so he didn't fight it. That sense of his own dangerousness tingled out to his skin, letting him breathe again. Then with a movement as inevitable as it was unexpected, the tingle lanced out, like an electrical overcharge, toward each of his teammates. It was met in turn by their own "charges." The whole mix of energies flashed once and then settled into a humming sense of group, and position, and _Weiss_ that locked anything else away from the four of them. Ken automatically relaxed. The rest of the room pretended not to notice.

"Well," observed Yohji, "I guess that declares us a team then."

With an abrupt "clunk," a line of light appeared across a wall and quickly widened. In very short order, with a continuous grind of machinery, the bow folded forward and down, forming a ramp that led into an open field surrounded by filled bleachers.

Ken estimated that the waiting audience was about the size of the crowd at his last fight. The big difference was that this one wasn't entirely human and was making no effort to hide that. This set-up also looked a lot more hurried than he was used to from this bunch.

No side entertainment. No betting booths. No VIP boxes, just a roped off section. Then he was moving, forced forward and down the ramp by the press of the fighters around him. Once he crossed the line between the ramp and the makeshift arena though, the place _felt _exactly like the ring for his last fight.

As soon as all the fighters were milling about on the open field, the PA system came on. "Welcome guests to an extra treat!" it blared overhead. "Due to an unplanned, last minute entry, we have onetoo many teams!" Ken recognized the smarmy voice of Sakashita. "This will require a fight-off!" The fighters had begun to look around the field, searching for unfamiliar faces. "Since _someone,_" Sakashita continued, "_crashed_ our party, all these _brave_ fighters are forced into free-for-all combat until we have only sixteen teams, again!" He paused for effect. During the theatrical silence, Ken noticed a fair number of fighters focus on Team Shiro. Not all fortunately, but more than a few. Sakashita began again, "Let the Fracas In The Field begin!"

"Well," observed Yohji, pulling his chain loose and wrapping it twice around one hand. "This'll let us show the crowd that we're the good guys right off!"

"I don't think this crowd is going to be cheering for the 'Faces', Yohji,"Omi observed wryly.

Aya took a deep stance, "Weiss," he began.

"Ah, Ah, Ah, that's _Shiro_," Yohji interrupted.

"Shiro," Aya began again, "be ready, here they come."

Ken flexed his hands in his loaded gloves, and then there was no more time for preparations.

Most of the field turned and fell on Weiss. If they'd had time to think about it, Weiss would have admitted it probably wasn't that many. At least a half-dozen little fights had sprung up, small grudge matches, groups eliminating those they particularly hated, or expected to have problems with in a more structured situation. It only _seemed_ like the whole field was out to get them.

Of course, they had no time to consider any of this. Weiss turned to face the rush. Ken came a little forward of the others, hands open to grapple, to take the shock of the charge. Aya drew his blade and tossed the sheath in his grip, leaving more on each side of his hand to block or bludgeon with. Yohji was spinning one end of his chain. He'd just gotten it up to a decent speed when the unusual nature of this fight showed itself. A trio of identical knife fighters broke from the mass and hit Weiss far faster than the rest.

Aya turned the edge of the katana, which his opponent was taking far too lightly, toward the body of his foe and leaned in, under the knife, letting the man's own momentum slice him through. Except it didn't. The man was un-armored. At his velocity, the razor edge of the blade should have sheared through him, separating the body into two pieces. However, a sparkle of that damnable pink trailed along the path of his blade, and Aya only scored a long line of blood from hip to shoulder and knocked the man to the ground.

Aya growled in frustration and brought up his sheath to block the huge fist of the next fighter who came over the sprawled form on the ground. He swept the punch up and aside. Stepping around the downed knife fighter and into a deeper stance, he sliced the fist-fighter across the ribs. This time he struck with much more effect. His blade still didn't shear through the bone, as it should have, but by aiming along the rib he'd succeeded in slicing deeply between. The man fell back clutching his side and snarling with a far too liquid sound. Aya smiled, a tight, vicious thing. It seemed he _could_ hurt these "magical" fighters. All it took was precision and timing.

Yohji, meanwhile, had engaged his own knife wielder. The disadvantage of chain over his wire was that it was essentially a spinning bludgeon. Instead of his functionally unlimited reel of ultra-thin, high-tensile wire that could slice delicate tissues, tie up enemies, and be cut loose when he wanted free of it, he had a short length of high speed club, with a tendency to collapse when he hit anything. Yohji hated it. It was like trying to play concert piano with bowling pins on his fingers. Of course, bowling pins hit very hard.

Yohji twitched aside and let the knife slide past him. Skipping behind the man, he stopped the chain's spin on the man's neck and, cooperative for once, the chain obligingly wrapped itself around. Yohji jerked hard, not with just his arm, but all the way from his hips, breaking the knife man's neck. At least the damn chain could do _something_ Yohji was good at. The body dropped, tangling the end of the chain. Yohji snarled and hauled on the chain, dragging the whole mess, chain, body, and all, up to block the blade, claw, fang, whatever-it-was, coming at his face.

It stuck in the body, saddling Yohji with even more drag. Stupid damn chain. He used the end wrapped around his other hand to smash the face behind that claw, which staggered back, shaking the body loose and dragging it clear of the chain. Yohji suppressed a giggle at the sudden gap in front of him. Poseurs who liked to bounce around padded rings and wave at the girls shouldn't mess with assassins who were serious. He unwrapped his hand and started spinning both ends. Double-fire for the next idiot.

Omi had fallen back a bit. He was, after all, the teams long-range specialist and strategist and wouldn't be much help in a melee. They'd taken his crossbow when he'd been captured and hadn't given it back. But there was a reason he wore a jacket with shorts. Why they hadn't done a better job frisking him, he didn't know. He stuck his hands through the bottom-less pockets of his jacket and pulled two fist-fulls of poison darts from the puncture-proof lining.

He jumped in the air and started sowing death and distraction in the back ranks. Absently, he noted the nerve agent was working better on some than others, but wasn't working as well as it should on anyone. Just as well, he probably wouldn't make it through thisfight with enough darts for the tournament, he hadn't brought that many. He'd have to come up with something else.

Yohji needed a wire, that chain just sucked. Another six-foot vertical leap for a better angle, and his second batch of nerve agent, his last. All the rest of his arsenal were knock-out darts, and these guys would just shrug them off. Of course, he could just imitate Aya. The next pair of darts buried to the fletching in an eye. Drugs or not, _"_pink stuff" or not, eyes still gouged nicely. And Ken would really need claws from somewhere.

Ken was vaguely aware of his friends on each side and behind, the glancing slice of Aya's katana, the crack of bone from Yohji's chain, and the whiz of Omi's darts past his ears. He wished he had his own weapon on him. He didn't know how to manage it, but if their cover _was_ blown, he wanted his claws back. A dead enemy was far less likely to try to kill him later than a merely unconscious one, and killing an opponent with bare hands simply took to long.

Ken popped back from the knife man's jab at his throat and caught his wrist. Then Ken grabbed his hip and using the man's own momentum, swung him in a circle, crashing him, lengthwise, into the line of fighters who were almost on top of Weiss. The force of the throw knocked the four or five in front of him back a few feet and, rolling across the ground where a couple more were forced to jump aside. Of course, with the "pink stuff" upping the force behind their blows, bare handed had its attractions too. He set himself to break the next charge, indulging in a little "come on" finger twitch and a cheery grin.

Ken's fun was interrupted by the loudest, shrillest air-horn it had ever been his misfortune to hear. It was actually loud enough to shock the field motionless for a moment. Into that brief silence, the speaker crackled to life. Sakashita gleefully announced, "We have the requisite number of teams! If the survivors will exit to their left, the staff will take you to your rooms to recover! Welcome to the Dark Tournament!" There was a loud explosion above the field, and suddenly confetti began to shower down on them while the loudspeaker began to play something brassy, martial, and classical for them to exit to.

The arena was no longer a green, grassy field, but a bloody, pockmarked mess. Counting Weiss' kills, there were a half-dozen or so bodies on the ground. Ken suspected that sixteen teams or not, the membership of those teams would be shifting a bit. Ken watched several, far too many, of the fighters Omi had darted simply pick themselves up off the mess and head for the exits. The living pair of the three identical knife fighters carried their third's body off, giving Yohji and Weiss a look that promised bloody retribution. Rather than risk a blade in the ribs, team Shiro let the field empty ahead of them. Then they picked their way over the dead, across the field and out of the absurd tinsel rain.

Up in the bleachers, the Tantei watched the melee with connoisseurs' eyes. "What is it with this bunch and surprise battle-royals? This is all just a little to familiar." Yuusuke said.

"Yes," Hiei agreed, "right down to the whole shipload focusing on one team."

"That is not entirely accurate, Hiei-," Kurama began, sweeping his hand to indicate the scattered battles in the rest of the arena.

He was interrupted by Kuwabara, "Hey, isn't one of those outnumbered guys the guy we were following?"

Kurama leaned forward for a better look. "I believe you are correct, Kuwabara, that _is_ Kudo".

"Yeah," Yuusuke added, "and that's Hidaka, and I think his trainer, but who's the kid?"

"His name's Omi," Genkai growled. "And the little bastard needs his ass kicked."

The boys all blinked at her in surprise for a moment, then turned back to the fight. "Well," said Kurama, "needs his 'ass kicked' he may, but it's not happening here. . ."

Anything else Kurama might have said was interrupted by the loudest, shrillest air-horn they had ever heard. While Sakashita's annoying voice gurgled through the loudspeaker, the Tantei surveyed the field. The several small fights scattered about the rest of the area had resolved themselves, with here or there a fallen fighter. The mass of the group, however, was clustered around the four familiar young men. The four of them had held off all comers in the few seconds of melee, clearing a gap of empty space on all sides.

"That's kind of impressive," Yuusuke observed. "I don't know about the one you guys followed," he looked at Kurama and Kuwabara, "but that's a hell of a lot more vicious then I remember Hidaka being when we were watching him."

"Yes," responded Kurama, "Kudo was always swift and effective in the fights we observed, but his opponents all lived. This brutal efficiency is not characteristic of the man we followed."

"I thought Omi was just a kid a little over his head when he came to the temple to see me." Genkai added.

Yuusuke thoughtfully stroked his chin. "Guys, correct me if I'm wrong, but as I remember, nobody even died in the last tournament, at least that I saw, until we got to Toguro's bunch."

"That isn't correct," said Hiei. "You were just not watching." He paused and added grudgingly, "Though you are correct that the early rounds were largely fatality free. This quick slaughter _is _a departure from the norm. Usually, they would build up anticipation and blood lust among the audience to spur the gambling. This tournament committee seems to want dead competitors as quickly as they can arrange it."

Slowly Yuusuke nodded. "Yeah, I think you're right, Hiei. The question is why?" He stopped, waiting for an answer. When there was none, he began again. "Okay, guys, back to the rooms. I think we need a complete strategy breakdown of the brouhaha we just saw. And, Genkai? See what Botan can come up with on those four guys will you?"

The woman's long, graceful fingers released the heavy satin drapes and let them fall softly into place, covering the window of the committee lounge. She held out her hand for the binoculars that the green-cloaked figure absently deposited there. "Well?" she asked.

"You are still overacting," he replied. "Though not as much as I thought." He turned his veiled face toward her. "They are more powerful than I would expect of boys so ignorant, but they _are_ ignorant. They have no thought how to begin to use that power. Thus, they are useful _repositories_ of power, they are helpless to aid themselves with it. They stay in the tournament." He swept past her to the door, where he paused. "Oh," he added over his shoulder, "they are very _efficient_ repositories." He turned to catch her gaze. "No more attempts to kill them. Let them live as long as they can in the ring. They will die there anyway. Be patient."

With a silken rustle he left the room. All was quiet for a long moment, then the woman threw the binoculars through the window with a snarl of rage and stalked away as the wall of glass crumbled and collapsed behind her.


	8. Chapter 8

I own neither YuYu Hakusho nor Weiss Kruez. Only the plot, narrative, and the occasional, (brief), OC are mine. Not for profit.

Connections

Chapter Eight

The warm, moist, tropical sea breeze curled through the window, opened a crack for just this purpose. Weiss, though exhausted from the arrival fight, had debated whether or not to open the window. Just as they had debated the safest place to sleep in the suite, the watch schedule, whether they dared eat the enormous feast provided them, whether or not they could survive their unexpectedly ravenous hungers if they _didn't_ eat the food, shower schedules, and anything else they could contrive to put off sleep. In the end however, the overwhelming exhaustion won out and one, by one, team Shiro slept.

The warm breeze wove among them, redolent of tropic perfume and bearing the breath of Morpheus, doing a favor for his cousin. The little breeze ruffled a lock of hair here, toyed with a shirt collar there, and wove itself into the the sleep of all four young warriors. Making their sleep deep, healing, and open to the presence of others. . .

Yohji woke up to the knock on his door. Then he realized, rather unexpectedly, that he hadn't woken up at all. He recognized this dream, the way the sunlight came through windows and whited out the edges of the room and the long, long walk to the door. He knew what he would find if he opened it.

Auska would be standing there, blood dripping from her head. Her clothes would be torn open and askew, baring the perfect flesh of her breasts and stomach, marred with her own gore. So he sat. He couldn't bear the sight of Auska, wanton and bloodied, again. To his surprise he continued to sit. Always before the dream would take control and walk him to the door. Maybe- the knock came again. How long could he sit? Could he stall until Omi came to make him get up?

A third knock, and this time, "Yohji." It was _her_ voice, her wonderful, terrible voice. "Yohji, If you want I can knock forever, but I can't come in until you open the door and let me."

Then softer, gentler, "Yohji, stop being an idiot and open the door. I've missed you. Please, Yohji."

That pulled him to his feet and carried him across the floor. He knew, he _knew,_ there were consequences to inviting ghosts, but he could never tell her "no," about anything.

He opened the door and there she stood, just like she had the last dozen times he'd dreamed of her, except. . .. There was no blood. She wasn't dressed in the wreck of her work outfit, but a light summer dress that was a perfect match for her favorite hat. And she smiled at him, truly smiled. Yohji didn't know how to react. This couldn't be real; his guilt wouldn't let go of him that much. He couldn't be dead; her smile would make this heaven, and Yohji was sure he wasn't headed there.

Auska gave him the little smirk that said she knew what he was thinking. "Whatever you're saying to yourself, cut it out. And, I can't walk through you -so move it, you big oaf!" Gently, but insistently, she pushed against his chest with one of her small, strong hands. He staggered back, clasping her hand to his chest like a last hope, all but dragging her inside with him.

She followed him inside and into his arms. Real, and soft, and so, so beautiful. "Damn, Auska," Yohji murmured into her hair, "I never want to wake up. Just stay here with me?"

She kept her arms around him but slid back enough to look up into his face. "I don't want you sleeping your life away, Yohji!"

"It's no kind of life without you," he answered.

She shook him just a little, her expression suddenly frustrated with him. How he loved the way her nose would scrunch when she glared. "Yohji! Snap out of it. If you keep flaking out like this you'll get yourself killed!" He started to open his mouth, but she cut him off again. "You may not care about that. But, Yohji," and she grabbed his chin, tilting his head down to meet her eyes, "you'll also get your partners killed too. Do you really not care about _that_?"

And that was too much too take from her, of all people. Helpless to stop himself, he wrenched away from her. Trying to escape the pain, yet having no where to run. He finally settled a few steps away, back turned to her and arms wrapped around himself. "I guess that's one thing I'm good at," he whispered, voice hollow.

"Dammit, Yohji." Her voice was soft and sad now. She put a hand on his shoulder and turned him to face her, his head bowed and eyes hidden behind the curtain of his fallen bangs. "I'm sorry, Yohji." Her hand swept through his bangs, tucking them behind each ear and coming away with a few loose strands. She half turned away, this topic was difficult for her too. "I shouldn't have said that, that way. I didn't mean you _want _to get your partners killed. 'Cause I know you don't." She looked over her shoulder at his eyes. "I do know you'd do anything to prevent it. But it's a dangerous world, Yohji. It happens. Sometimes you have to choose, even between partners. Which you did. And I am so, so grateful that you loved enough to do it."

His head snapped up, and he all but screamed, "I _killed_ you, Auska! Twice! How can that be love!"

"Yes! Yohji, you killed me! But it was only _once_. Get that through your stupid head! I left _you_ to die- _not the other way around. _The fact that I died and you lived was just bad luck, or my bad Karma for abandoning you." She turned aside again, her fingers nervously twining his shed hairs between them.

"Auska," he soothed, "you didn't abandon me. I begged you to go..."

"Why, Yohji? Why?"

"I wanted you to live!"

"Idiot." She looked up at him fondly. "How does that mean you killed me, in Yohji-land?"

"But- you died."

She laughed at him. "Because a whole bunch of third-rate Yakuza wannabes got very lucky, that's all." She turned back to him, taking his hand and pulling him with her to sit on the bed. "If you really need me to, then I forgive you for it. You don't need it, you committed no sin, but I'll forgive you anyway, both times."

He winced. "You can't argue the second one wasn't my fault. I strangled you, with my own wire, and I'll never know if it was because you tried to kill me, or because your last breath was _his_ name."

She snorted. "That's easy. _My_ last word was _your _name, and it was spoken in that alley. She sighed. "Yohji, the fact is I did die in that alley. My heart stopped my breath stopped, I was _dead._ And that's when that bastard Masafumi stepped in.

"You remember what he made of himself? I'm sure you've noticed a few look-a-likes in the tournament?" Bemusedly Yohji nodded back. "Well that isn't an accident. Masafumi had been experimenting with human-to-demon conversion for some time. I was just a great opportunity. So he stuck a low-grade demon in my body and used it to revive me."

She turned to him and put her hand on his heart. "I _was_ alive, Yohji, but I was a prisoner in my own body. I wasn't even allowed to have so much as a thought or feeling that wasn't Masafumi approved. I was allowed to hate you for "leaving" me in the alley, but I wasn't allowed to remember that I'd been the one to walk away."

She leaned forward and dropped her head to his chest. "It was hell, Yohji. The only thing that could have made the torment worse is if I _had _killed you." She looked up at him from under her hat. "If my life was the price to leave hell. . .. I am so glad you loved me enough to pay it." She threw her arms around him and shuddered, sobbing.

He pulled her hat from her head and dropped it by the bed, fingers running through her hair, tousling her curls. He kissed the top of her hair. "I guess you're right, Auska. Logically, I'm not guilty." He paused. "But losing you hurts so much that I'm not sure I'll ever convince my heart."

She sat up, lip trembling, and pinned him with her gaze; her eyes luminous from tears. "Just promise me you'll try, Yohji."

He nodded solemnly. "For you, I promise I will try." He leaned forward and sealed the promise with a kiss.

Quite without anyone intending it, the kiss grew, and spread until she was lying half under him and he was pressed, the long length of him, against her, from nose to knees. "You know," she whispered, "I do have till dawn, and that is a while away..."

He smiled down at her. An open grin, full of love, and joy, and for the first time in a long time, life.

Later he followed her around the small room, helping her dress, finding her shoes where they'd thrown them. Drawing her smell in, the way she moved, the bend of her wrist, the arch of her throat, sating himself on her presence. Storing up the memory of her against the coming drought.

At last there was nothing else to do to put off leaving. Every step dragging through clay, he walked her over to the door. She stopped and just looked at him for the longest time. Then she sighed and squared her shoulders. "One last thing I came to do. I mustn't leave without it." She slipped a wide black braided band around his wrist, tied with a black-and-blond love knot.

He tilted his head curiously. "What is this?" he asked.

She sighed and took a firmer hold on his hand. "I made it for you." She touched the interwoven and endless loops of black and gold. "This is a love knot." A smile flitted across her face. "My love for you. She touched the band. "And this is woven from a murdered woman's hair, mine".

Yohji jerked back like he'd been burned. But she held him.

"You're an assassin, Yohji. For all the right reasons, but you kill people, nightly. This hair," she rubbed the sleek loop of hair again, "cries out for justice and vengeance." She smiled up at him. "Exactly what you give to the victims without other recourse. This, is crafted from _my _hair." Then her thumb caressed the endless ebony-and-gold lover's knot. "And this is made from ours. It is my love gift to you. I'm not going to give you some fragile flower or something like that. I'm giving you a _weapon__,_ Yohji, because I want you to _live_. And love, if you can find someone worthy of it, and watch over your crew of little brothers for a long time. And I want you to be _happy._ So I'm giving you something to fight with." She touched the bracelet again. "That will never break as long as you don't, and will cut what you want it too, but support who you want to save, and will never, never run out on you." She touched the knot. "And that loves you like I do, because it's made with a piece of that love."

She stroked his cheek with her free hand. "We never had enough time, Yohji, but I loved every minute we had." She gave him her heart in her smile and opened the door.

"Auska, I don't want you to leave without me." He reached out his hand as she turned to walk out the door.

She stopped in the doorway and looked over her shoulder, the light already growing painfully bright beyond her. As her figure faded into the growing glare, she smiled at him. "Don't worry, Yohji. One day I will be back, and _then_ I won't be leaving without you." She blew him a last kiss and was gone.

Omi was standing in a child's nursery. He turned about in the center of the room, gazing into its corners confusedly. What in the world was he doing here? He should be on the island, it was his watch! The others! Omi turned to dive out the window, he had to get back to Weiss-

"Mamoru."

Omi froze. Mamoru? Only his family called him Mamoru. "Oh, please. . .." he silently begged. No more, not while everything he had left was in such peril. One more drop of filial blood on his hands would shatter him.

"Mamoru." The voice was sweet and gentle and womanly, yet completely unlike... . "Won't you face me? It's been so long since I saw your smile."

Omi shuddered, a thrill of mingled fear and longing shaking its way down him from skull to toes. He wanted to. But he knew if he did. . .. If he did he would _remember_. Still he hesitated, unable to turn yet unable to leave.

"Please."

There was such love and loneliness and a longing, so like his own in that one word. Omi was turning before he knew it. As he turned, first the corner of his eye caught the shining edge of her shape. Then slipping into his view, like a full moon rising onto a black and starless night, came her face. The more he saw the faster he turned, the more he recognized, the more memory burst into the back of his head until with a blinding flash of hugs-warm-toys-puppies-cake-running-laughing-_love_, "Mother!"

In a desperate leap, Omi crossed the distance between them, wrapping his arms around her and burying his face on her shoulder, so much taller against her lithe frame than he'd ever been in the memories which now flooded him. Gently, she wrapped her full sleeves around her lost son and held him as he wept and shook through the pain of restored time.

Eventually, the shaking slowed and then ceased, and she guided them both to the floor to sit. Reluctant to let go, he held her hand for a while until he noticed, "Mother, why is your hand so cold?" Puzzled, he looked to her for an explanation.

She smiled rather wistfully. "You know why, my Mamoru. My hand is cold because I am dead."

He wanted to deny it. But he had far too much experience with reality's habit of heartbreak to argue. Besides, the fact raised a far more immediate possible problem. "Did we finally fail then? Are you here for me? Am I finally, truly dead, Mother?"

Surprisingly, considering how hard they'd always fought to live, the possibility didn't actually frighten him. Or rather it did, but the fear was mixed with an equal sense of relief. His mother wouldn't have come for him if he was headed to hell after all.

She laughed, the light cheerful sound that she'd always reserved for times he'd done something endearing or silly. Child-Mamoru had tried very hard to be endearing just to hear that laugh. "No, love. You and your new brothers aren't dead yet." Her voice lost the laughter and her eyes became serious, though just as loving. "And I am here to teach you something to keep it that way."

He smiled at her. He knew his smile was a little weak and watery, but he wanted her to understand how precious this moment was to him. But now that she had come to the point of the visit, there would be the training she had come for, and then she would vanish too. At least it seemed he would be allowed to keep her lesson, if not the memory of her face.

He sat a little straighter and focused his attention on his mother. Whatever it was, he would learn it, and this mission would succeed and then he would move on to the next evil scheme to thwart. That was life wasn't it? You went from problem to problem, did the best you could, and never quit until the bad guys were beyond hurting the innocent ever again.

Abruptly his chin was lifted by one elegant finger. "Oh, my dear little one. Don't be like that. Your life has purpose beyond the valuable work you do. Your own happiness is important too. That is probably the Takatori flaw, you know. It destroyed both your father and his brother. They were both so intent in their responsibilities that they lost everything else. The only fundamental difference is that one of them forgot how important happiness and love both are, and your father never did." She leaned forward and kissed the spot on his brow she'd always kissed when he was ill. "Don't you forget either."

She shifted to pull him around the low table and against her side; like she would to show him something special when he was small. She waved a hand at the stack of gleaming paper in front of them. "Mamoru," her voice took on her teaching tone, "you know what your father's family were, do you remember what mine did?"

Omi sifted through his new-old memories and finally shook his head. "No, Mother, I'm afraid I don't- only something with words?"

She smiled, confident and conspiratorial. "I never passed on this skill because _his_ hold was too strong on your brothers. Then," her smile wilted a bit, "you were lost." The smile regained its mischievousness as she picked up a brush. "I'm sorry, my son, you won't remember everything from our visit together. But what I teach you now _will_ stay. Let me show you the first handful of 'something with words'." She dipped her brush in the ink.

Aya sat on the edge of his sister's hospital bed and stared in stunned disbelief at the slashed sheets. Hadn't they done this already? Found his stolen sister? Wasn't she already awake and dancing in and out of the sun in the Koneko? Or perhaps that was the dream. He sighed in his heart, unwilling to further profane her resting place with his unclean breath. He lifted his hand, he knew he had no right, but he was so alone, and he missed her smile so much; maybe, just maybe, to touch the fabric where she had lain would be allowed?

Footsteps on hospital tile interrupted his musings. He listened to them grow closer behind him. Ah, he knew this dream now. He dropped his head and closed his eyes in resignation. Soon the footsteps would stop and the voice would whisper in his ear all his guilt, all his murders. Would hiss out all the indelible uncleanliness that forever separated him from the last person he loved, the last that loved him.

The footsteps stopped, next to him. "Seriously, Aya, and I say this as a friend, when you get off this island? Look into some Trazadone or some Lithium because this isn't just survivor guilt. This is full out suicidal depression." A grin crept into the warm tenor. "And I didn't enjoy our brief friendship enough to want to pick it up again this quickly!"

Bafflement written all over his face, Aya blinked up into the smiling face of Kritiker investigator Botan.

"Come on, Aya." Botan extended a gloved hand. Shocked, Aya accepted his hand and was pulled to his feet. Botan kept a hold of his hand but shifted his grip to one more comfortable for walking. Confused, Aya tried to pull his hand free, but Botan hung on.

"No," Botan said, "Don't get upset about this, Aya. I need to bring you somewhere, and if we aren't holding hands while we walk you will get lost in this place. You spend too much time here anyway."

"Where are we then?" Aya asked, no longer fighting the grip of the hand in his.

"I'm here to see that you get a gift. The only place you can get it is in the past. Like I said, a place you spend too much time in."

"I don't," Aya groused as they walked.

"Yes, you do," Botan responded. "You keep going back to that Hospital Room. Every time you start to let it go you run back there to your guilt and your despair, and most importantly, your isolation."

They stopped before double doors to a study that had suddenly replaced the hospital hallway where they had been walking. Botan turned to face Aya. "As I said, _Ran_, I am here to give you a gift. It should be someone else doing this, but you're still so preoccupied with the past that we decided it would just be too dangerous for you, so I came instead."

"Father's-" Aya began, and his voice hitched, "father's study?" His hand came up and gently pushed a door open. He walked inside, pulling Botan with him. "I haven't seen this in..."

Botan interrupted, "Because you haven't let yourself, Ran. You've been stuck in that hospital like a looped program for years now. I came because you need something here. There is nothing you need there."

Aya scowled at Botan. "I need something here? What could I need in my father's business office?"

Botan's answering smirk was wry. "A lot of things. Answers for one. But we don't have time for that. You'll have to learn to come back here on your own for those. Today you're here for something you will need when you wake tomorrow. Ask yourself, what did you look for when you came here as a child?"

Aya's eyes narrowed in a way that promised there _would_ be other visits. He dropped Botan's hand and slowly circled the room, looking for whatever-it-was he was here to seek. At last he said, "The only thing I wanted here was Father's approval. Which I almost never got. I can't imagine what. . .."

"Stop," Botan interrupted. Aya was facing a blank space of wall.

"It's a blank wall," Aya snarled, turning to glare at Botan.

Gently, but firmly, Botan's hand came up and gripped the side of Aya's face, forcing his gaze back to the wall. "What did you always want to play with as a small boy, then just looked at as an older child, then finally pretended not to notice as a teenager? What were you always told 'you're not old enough' about?"

Suddenly, Aya recognized the wall where there had always hung, and he now saw it still did, a beautiful red-and-gold sheathed katana.

"Well, Aya," came Botan's distant and retreating voice from behind him. "Are you old enough now?"

Aya stepped forward and set one knowledgeable hand on the saya near the guard and the other farther down the length to balance it. From behind came a second, well loved, set of hands to help him take it from the wall; and with that un-hoped for aid, Aya finally felt old enough.

Ken didn't wake up. Though he felt awake, he somehow knew that his consciousness was an illusion. The misty floor and indistinct horizons were good clues too. He'd always associated this landscape with one of his "I'm dead" dreams. He was a little worried that this oddly real version was going to end like most of them -dropping him into an infernal lake of fire. That would probably hurt more than usual. Of course he could hope for the far-more-rare Golden Gate version. He wondered if he'd be allowed through them this time. Then his "soldier sense" abruptly warned him he was being flanked and he whirled to face the threat.

Out of the rolling mist and dis-focused air walked a figure. A bit taller than Ken, the walker was a young man with brown hair and a slight build. He wore a long blue tunic over a white sleeved shirt and some kind of tan trousers which caught at his ankles, above soft slippers. A bright red cape floated in the young man's personal breeze. Which almost distracted Ken from noticing the "Jr" on the teen's forehead and the blue binky in his mouth. What was really distracting though, was the coruscating sense of the grave that Ken could taste rolling from the unassuming figure.

"Ken." The person stopped just outside Ken's reach. He continued, "Do you know who I am?"

"No." Ken answered. "But, I should. . . I should be afraid, but I'm not. Why? Who are you? Why are you here in my dream?"

The teen smiled. "All of them fair questions Ken. In order then: You should be afraid because your spiritual senses aren't asleep anymore like they used to be. So you can tell _what _I am, even if you don't know my name. You do know me, just not by name. My name is Koenma." He pointed at the "Jr" on his forehead. "And all you Weiss lost your fear of death some time ago. For you it's familiar territory. Last, I am in your dream because you four have friends you don't know about, and some of those are in very high places. Next to me in fact."

"Am I dead?" asked Ken.

"No, not now," Koenma answered, "but you've all set one foot across that line at least once. You, Ken, have crossed into my realm no less than three times. Do you remember the museum, and the warehouse, and the car crash?"

"How could I forget?" Ken muttered bitterly. "So I don't fear you because I don't fear death? I'm not sure about that."

Koenma nodded. "Oh you don't. I never said you had lost your respect for death, nor meant to accuse you of courting it. You simply no longer fear it." He pause and took a step closer. "Here, let me show you. " He offered his hand. "Allow me a more formal introduction. Koenma, Junior King of the Dead, pleased to meet you."

Ken's hand came up and gripped the offered hand by reflex. The skin was cool and smooth against his own palm. Not warm and human, perhaps, but neither frightening nor unpleasant. He held the clasp a polite moment and let go. Koenma did not. Ken began to be a little uncomfortable. Then when his palm began to tingle and burn while still the god-ling held him, he began to be apprehensive.

While Ken's breath shortened and he felt his adrenaline begin to rise, Koenma spoke again. "I wish I could simply remove your memory of this and let you have a normal life. Unfortunately, your 'normal life' isn't very normal to begin with, and in your current state you'd inevitably attract the wrong attention. Then you would get in over your head and end up destroyed or corrupted. So I've decided to take action myself."

The not-unpleasant sensation of fire had coursed up Ken's arms and was now climbing his neck and rushing down the center of his body.

"Considering where and who was involved," Koenma continued, "it may well have been inevitable. But Weiss -well you've been straddling the line between normal and beyond for a very long time. The four of you dance along the border between life and the death like it was a flowery meadow and not an iron absolute. All of which made you ready for this."

His free hand started to glow and rise. "One of the best privileges of godhood is that you get to grant the occasional wish. You may write this off as a dream if you like, but I'm going to give you something you asked for, a weapon." Koenma's hand gently touched the center of Ken's forehead. "And when you are offered help unlooked for: take it."

The world flashed a neon blue, before it quickly faded to black.

Yuusuuke was half-on-half-off the sofa in the shared living/reception room of their rather opulent guest quarters. The Tantei had debated strategy, fruitlessly, late into the night. They knew that the demon underworld and the human underworld were in this up to their rotten, little necks. They knew many of the major players. But every possible motivation they could contrive failed to explain the players and actions they _did_ know, let alone left room for the ones they didn't. Was the Tournament Committee after money? Then why move so fast. The original Dark Tournament -which many of these people had helped run, had made a week's spectacle of the event. Making money on tickets, broadcasts, tapes, and especially the gambling.

This Tournament Committee was going to be out of combatants in another day or two at this rate. Less than half the time to spend gambling. Even if they were running the gambling simultaneously world-wide by remote they were still cutting their potential profit by half.

Were they after power, some sacrificial ritual? Then where were the priests or sorcerers or active damn spells that afternoon at that free-for-all? It just made no sense. The only thing that was clear was that they wanted to kill fighters, in the ring, as fast as possible. They were missing some crucial piece of the puzzle and it was driving them all crazy.

Eventually Genkai had declared a halt before frustration could come to blows. Yuusuuke had slept an hour or so, but he never needed much sleep anymore, and found himself awake and at odds just before dawn. His feet were propped casually and comfortably on the silk brocade cushions and a pen was precariously balanced on his upper lip as he fought boredom. The others were in their various suites about individual chores and he was killing time with the pen. The pen, which in turn, made a solid attempt at putting out his eye when he abruptly leaped to his feet as Botan swooped through the wall. "Botan!" he burst out in surprise, "glad you could make it here! I was afraid this place would be super-warded."

Botan gave a little disgusted sniff, "With all the effort these jerks have gone to to _invite_ me?"

"Hunh. Good point." Yuusuuke said, rubbing the back of his neck.

"Then," interrupted Kurama as he and the others entered from their own suites, "dare we hope that the knowledge we seek is carried by so lovely a blossom?"

Botan hopped off her oar and giggled at the compliment. "Actually," she answered, pulling a small pile of folders from her sleeve and passing them around, "we _were_ finally able to get complete dossiers on those fighters you were following. And," hedged Botan, "it turns out the situation is a _little_ more complicated than we thought-"

"_Weiss?"_ interrupted Hiei, "what is this?"

And from Genkai, "After that free-for-all earlier it was clear Omi was into _something_ well over his genki little head." She shook her head regretfully. "After his performance there I can't even say I'm surprised it's assassination_._"

Botan sighed. "Well, I should have expected not to surprise Master Genkai."

Genkai continued, "I think I better talk to him again. If he's a trained agent and not some kid fiddling where he shouldn't be, some things he said shed a disturbing light on the possible purpose of this tournament."

Kurama looked up from the file he was perusing. "_Should_ we approach them? From the information in these files they seem to be investigating this tournament with an eye to ending it, just as we are. But they are ordinary mortals. If we approach them, will it not draw the attention of the Tournament Committee? Would we not imperil them?"

"Actually," Botan responded quickly, "approaching them is exactly what Koenma-sama wants you to do." That stopped the paper shuffling and got Botan the room's undivided attention. She flushed. "Well, this Weiss is their organization's premier team. They are the ones that get sent in for all the really dodgy jobs. _Especially_ all the supernatural jobs. Over the years-"

"Years?" Hiei was faintly incredulous.

"Omi has been in this game since Kritiker rescued him from kidnappers at age eleven." Botan flapped her sleeves in agitation. "But back to what I was_ saying_. Over the years this has had umm, an affect on them. They've all died and been revived at least once, were ground zero at a major, fortunately failed, demon summoning, have psychics as a major reoccurring nemeses, and this 'pink stuff', don't ask me to explain that I don't understand it, is _really _sticking to them. After all that, they aren't really _normal_ anymore. Lord Koenma thinks that attacking this tournament from more than one angle can only be a good thing. So he's 'poking' this oddness of theirs a bit. Give it a little definition. He just wants you to give them a few pointers is all." She pulled her cuteness out and turned it on full blast.

The Tantei were long since inured to Botan's industrial-strength cuteness and deflected it with nonplussed stares.

"Let me get this straight," Yuusuke finally said, "Koenma want us to take these guys as _students?"_

Botan shrugged, "Students or not would be up to you, but these guys were just ordinary joes a very little while ago, and he feels your input could determine whether they survive this or not." She grinned brightly. "Well, gotta go! Death never rests!" She hopped onto her oar and escaped out the wall just ahead of Yuusuke's diving grab.

"Idiot," observed Hiei. "After millennia of quick escapes, you think you're going to catch her when she knows you're coming? He raised the file he held. "What shall we do about this?"

Genkai sighed, "That would be the question." She took the file Hiei held. "Lets pass these around the group and read them in detail. I _will_ be talking to Omi at least, but as for the rest of Koenma's little request, lets get all the information first."


End file.
